The Giants officially have a new man to lead their offense — and he’s got a title typically reserved for the gridiron.
The team announced Thursday afternoon that they’ve hired James Rowson, who spent the last three seasons as the New York Yankees’ hitting coach, to be their new “offensive coordinator.”
Rowson, 50, will replace hitting coach Hunter Mense, who left after one season. Mense was expected to return but joined the Kansas City Royals (who also have an offensive coordinator), allowing him to be closer to his wife, who works for the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs.
“I’m super excited about him coming on board,” said president of baseball operations Buster Posey. “Feel like it was important for us to hire a guy — not that I’m saying this was the downfall of Mense — but I do think after last year, hire a guy that’s been there and done it before.
“By all accounts, by making phone calls to a lot of different people, I kept hearing the same thing over and over again. One of the better leaders they’ve been around in Rowson, and I think the relationship that he’s made with players has been really, really good. That’s the hope for us here is that he can come in and build some great trust with our group early on. That’s the foundation to any teacher: Does the student trust him?”
Rowson will join assistant hitting coach Oscar Bernard, who will return for his third season. Posey said the Giants plan to add another hitting coach as well.
Posey told reporters at the GM Meetings in Las Vegas that Rowson, who has 12 years of experience on major-league coaching staffs, came up with the offensive coordinator title. Rowson will also be responsible for baserunning as offensive coordinator, and Posey said that Rowson will have to ensure he’s aligned with third base coach Gary Pettis, new first base coach Taira Uematsu and bench coach Jayce Tingler.
“I think it’s more of a preference for him and kind of what, through his experience, feels like it’ll give him the structure and chain of command to have the oversight out of all run production,” Posey said.
Rowson joins a team that finished last season ranking 26th in runs scored, 29th in on-base percentage (.306) and 23rd in OPS. The Giants were also subpar on the bases, ranking 22nd in steals and ranking 27th in FanGraphs’ Baserunning metric.
The Giants, on paper, have the foundation for an offense that can be closer to league average. Rafael Devers is a finalist for the NL Silver Slugger Award at first base and formed a one-two punch with Bryce Eldridge, who had one of the better rookie seasons in franchise history. There was also Casey Schmitt, who broke out before sustaining a season-ending injury.
Still, San Francisco will need more production out of its big-money players such as Matt Chapman (97 OPS+), Willy Adames (100 OPS+) and Jung Hoo Lee (105 OPS+), all of whom took a step back offensively.
“This is him talking, and I’ll paraphrase: ‘You can’t go in and say this is going to be our identity. You have to go in and give the guys a chance to show you what their identity is going to be, and then mold that identity based on who they are,’” Posey said when asked about Rowson’s offensive philosophy.
The Giants’ offensive identity in 2026 was that of a team with decent-ish slug but finished last in the majors in walk rate (7.4%). That low walk rate was partially the product of having hitters such as Schmitt, Lee and Luis Arraez, but even the likes of Devers, Chapman and Adames saw year-to-year drops in walk rate.
“Some personnel, some general mindset of trying to dig out of a hole. Like, ‘Hey, we’ve got to hit our way out of this,’” Posey said. “I think some of it, too, could be having a guy like Arraez in the lineup who has the most elite contact ability in the world. … That’s kind of been his way of being productive, but that’s not going to work for many people at all. So, I do think it’s a combination of that.”
Regarding the baserunning element, Posey said he would like to see the Giants be more aggressive on the bases.
Rookie outfielder Jonah Cox was a late-season revelation and led the Giants with 16 steals in just 62 games, but San Francisco still lacks high-volume baserunners. One of their best baserunners, ironically enough, is Devers, who excelled at going from first to third despite being in the 18th percentile of sprint speed.
Pettis will continue to oversee baserunning after sharing that responsibility with last year’s first base coach Shane Robinson (who transitioned to the minor league side), and Posey believes Pettis’ “wealth of knowledge” will be useful.
“I think it starts from a place of not being fearful,” Posey said. “In anything you do on the baseball field, whether it’s trying to steal a base or hit a 100-mile-an-hour fastball, if there’s fear of failure — and we all experience it. As much as anything, that’s the hope is that our group of guys gets to that place. Even though I say to them that there’s not going to be repercussions if you get thrown out, there’s still hesitancy there, and we’ve got to get over that hurdle.”
The 2027 season will mark Rowson’s 26th season coaching in the pros. Before his latest position with the Yankees, Rowson was a hitting coach with the Chicago Cubs (2012-13) and Minnesota Twins (2017-19), as well as an assistant hitting coach with the Detroit Tigers (2023). Rowson was also the Miami Marlins’ bench coach for three seasons (2020-22).