Curt Casali, who retired after being released by the Atlanta Braves in spring training, has joined the San Francisco Giants as an advisor to their baseball operations department.
Casali, 37, ended his 11-year playing career in Major League Baseball when he joined the Cincinnati Reds’ front office earlier this year in an unannounced hire.
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Coincidentally, Casali was the backup catcher to current Giants president of baseball operations Buster Posey before Posey retired following the 2021 season.
The 2021 Giants team ended the Los Angeles’ Dodgers run of division titles by going 107-55. They then lost to the Dodgers in a five-game NL Division Series.
Casali, the Detroit Tigers’ 10th-round pick in 2011, played for the Giants in 2021-22 before returning two years ago. The Bay Area native played his final 41 games in the majors for the Giants in 2024.
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Casali’s playing career rarely followed a straight path, yet it kept circling back to clubhouses that valued his voice as much as his bat.
The Tigers moved Casali to Tampa Bay in 2013, and by the next summer he was in the majors, carving out a backup catcher role that rewards steadiness over splash. The Rays leaned on him most heavily in 2016, when he shouldered the bulk of their catching duties, but the offensive breakout never arrived.
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Tampa Bay cut ties, and Casali embarked on a well-traveled tour of minor-league contracts before finding traction again in Cincinnati. From 2018-20 he posted a .260/.345/.440 slash line, good enough to turn Tucker Barnhart’s workload into something resembling a job share.
Even so, the Reds non-tendered Casali after the pandemic-shortened season, sending Casali west to San Francisco. The Giants later traded him to Seattle at the 2022 deadline, where he served as a veteran counterweight to Cal Raleigh during the Mariners’ playoff push.
Now, Posey and Casali will reunite in the Giants’ baseball operations department — a rare turn for two former teammates at the same position so soon after their playing careers ended.
More to come on this story from Newsweek Sports.