Baseball - Giants Bruce Bochy Manager

While Bochy previously claimed that he had no intention of leaving a winning situation with the San Diego Padres, he has been announced as San Francisco's manager. After allowing the Padres to consecutive division titles, he will now have the hard task to repeat the same performance with the Giants who had two losing seasons.

Bochy signed a three-year-worth-$6 million contract with the Giants on Thursday. After twenty four years spent with the Padres, Bochy agreed to move to San Francisco to replace Felipe Alou. Bochy just completed his 12th season as the Padres' manager and had one year remaining on his contract. The 51-year-old man guided San Diego to consecutives NL West titles and is the manager with the most numerous victories in franchise history. Bochy has been allowed by the Padres to explore new professional opportunities last week on Wednesday. Bochy went to the Bay Area on Thursday to meet with Sabean and other team officials. They negotiated during the night before reaching a deal. The Giants had only a seven-day window in which to come to an agreement with Bochy as the latter was employed by another team. As a result of the deal, the Padres will not receive any compensation from San Francisco. Bochy was planned to make $1.9 million according to his contract with the Padress in 2007, so his new deal is a raise.

The Giants decided not to renew former manager Alou's contract after he guided the team to its second straight losing season and third in a row out of the play-offs. In order to replace Alou, the Giants also approached New York Mets third-base coach Manny Acta on Monday, Giants bench coach Ron Wotus and Los Angeles Angels pitching coach Bud Black.

Bochy will have to make critical decision in the upcoming weeks regarding the current roster of the Giants. Indeed San Francisco has 11 potential free agents including Barry Bonds.