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Royals hire SF Giants national crosschecker as scouting director

The Kansas City Royals have hired SF Giants national cross checker Brian Bridges to be their new scouting director.

Marc Delucchi

Royals hire SF Giants national crosschecker as scouting director
Royals hire SF Giants national crosschecker as scouting director /
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The Kansas City Royals have hired SF Giants national cross checker Brian Bridges away to be their scouting director, according to a report by Keith Law of The Athletic. Bridges was previously a scouting director with Atlanta from 2015-2018, leading the charge for drafts that featured players like Austin Riley, Kyle Wright, Ian Anderson, AJ Minter, and Tristan Beck. Bridges has long been considered one of the most reputable scouts in the Giants front office and is expected to be a major loss for the organization.

Bridges played college baseball at Florida Southern College, the same Division-II school where recent Giants draft picks Vaun Brown (Giants Top 16 Prospect) and Drew Cavanaugh attended, back in the early 1990s before becoming a scout. He first worked as a scout for the Angels from 2000-2003 before joining the Marlins from 2004-2007. At that point, Bridges joined Atlanta.

During his tenure in Atlanta, Bridges moved up the chain of command from scout to area supervisor to regional cross checker before he was promoted to scouting director in 2015. Bridges helped Atlanta build a farm system flush with talent that would eventually help form the nucleus of the organization's current contender, but also several future top-100 prospects who they would use to acquire top talent.

This past offseason, Atlanta parted with two pitching prospects (Kyle Muller and Freddy Tarnok) drafted during Bridges' tenure to acquire All-Star catcher Sean Murphy from the Oakland Athletics.

Bridges was fired in Atlanta shortly after Alex Anthopolous became the organization's top baseball operations decision maker. In 2018, Bridges' last draft as scouting director with the team, Atlanta failed to sign a top-10 pick (prep righty Carter Stewart), which likely expedited Anthopolous' decision to move on from him. Granted, given how MLB executives often clean house upon their arrival, it's hard to know if a change would have happened anyway.

The Giants quickly scooped Bridges up after he was let go following the 2018 season, and he has been one of the team's top scouting voices since. Now that he will be back leading the charge with the Royals, the SF Giants will have to replace one of the bigger names in the team's amateur scouting department.

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Marc Delucchi
MARC DELUCCHI

Marc Delucchi (he/they/she) serves as the Managing Editor at Giants Baseball Insider, leading their SF Giants coverage. As a freelance journalist, he has previously covered the San Francisco Giants at Around the Foghorn and McCovey Chronicles. He also currently contributes to Niners Nation, Golden State of Mind, and Baseball Prospectus. He has previously been featured in several other publications, including SFGate, ProFootballRumors, Niners Wire, GrandStand Central, Call to the Pen, and Just Baseball. Over his journalistic career, Marc has conducted investigations into how one prep baseball player lost a college opportunity during the pandemic (Baseball Prospectus) and the rampant mistreatment of players at the University of Hawaii football program under former head coach Todd Graham (SFGate). He has also broken dozens of news stories around professional baseball, primarily around the SF Giants organization, including the draft signing of Kyle Harrison, injuries and promotions to top prospects like Heliot Ramos, and trade details in the Kris Bryant deal. Marc received a Bachelor's degree from Kenyon College with a major in economics and a minor in Spanish. During his time in college, he conducted a summer research project attempting to predict the future minor-league performance of NCAA hitters, worked as a data analyst for the school's Women's basketball team, and worked as a play-by-play announcer/color commentator for the basketball, baseball, softball, and soccer teams. He also worked as an amateur baseball scout with the Collegiate Baseball Scouting Network (later renamed Evolution Metrix), scouting high school and college players for three draft cycles. For tips and inquiries, feel free to reach out to Marc directly on Twitter or via email (delucchimarc@gmail.com).

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