Weekend BP: Will anyone go with Bruce Bochy?

In case you missed the news on Friday, Bruce Bochy is getting back in the game. The most successful and beloved manager in San Francisco Giants history has abandoned the retirement that never felt real, and has signed a three-year deal to manage the Texas Rangers.

I’m not sad about it. It’s bittersweet having Bochy don another team’s colors, and it will be weird as all hell when he steps out of the visitor’s dugout on August 11 when the Rangers are in town. But baseball’s better with Bochy in it, and it never really felt like he was done with the sport, so I can’t be upset.

But I am left wondering if anyone from his 13-year tenure in San Francisco will join him.

It seems plausible that some coaches might follow Bochy to Arlington, but there’s one name that really makes sense: Brandon Belt.

Belt is a free agent, and while the Giants have expressed interest in retaining him — and he has said he doesn’t want to leave — nothing is set in stone. Far from it. And if Belt were to play for a new team next year, what better than the one that’s less than 200 miles from where he grew up, managed by the skipper that Belt played the first nine years of his career for? I sure as hell don’t wanna see Belt wearing any other jersey, but him with Bochy would make me smile.

Never forget this amazing scene that I’ve now queued up so you can watch (sincere apologies for the person in the thumbnail).

I suppose Madison Bumgarner could also make his way to Texas, and maybe another Bochy disciple or two. Stranger things have happened.