How will the SF Giants replace Mike Krukow? We spoke to several candidates.

As the San Francisco Giants embark on an offseason filled with questions about the franchise, arguably the biggest one to answer is who will replace broadcasting legend Mike Krukow.

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Krukow retired after 36 years as the team’s primary television analyst, with his last game fittingly happening last Sunday against the Dodgers, the team he grew up rooting for. Krukow has admitted he wanted to go out quietly but was convinced to announce his retirement all the way back on Aug. 6, which is something Giants CEO Larry Baer is grateful for.

“He put himself through a lot in the last five, six weeks,” Baer told SFGATE on Tuesday. “But announcing when he did and feeling the love, as it turned out, totally energized him. That was great. It turned out to be the right call.”

The Giants were able to give Krukow a touching send-off and allow their fans to say goodbye. His longtime broadcasting partner and best friend Duane Kuiper brought both laughs and tears to Krukow with his actions on the day, with former teammates Bob Brenly and Will Clark giving touching speeches to their longtime friend. 

Krukow has admitted many times recently that he doesn’t want to retire, but his degenerative muscle disease has gotten to the point where he told NBC Sports Bay Area it is “becoming unsafe” to be anywhere but his Reno home on a regular basis. Krukow was never one to complain about his issues, though — in fact, Clark admitted to SFGATE last week that he occasionally has had to “kind of pin him against the wall” to get the real truth from his mentor. Baer noted that Krukow has “endured” to keep broadcasting for 20 years since he first got his diagnosis.

“Mike stepping down is not because he has any less passion for it — he would do this literally for the rest of his life if he could,” Baer said. “But as he said to me when he first told me about this, well before he announced it, he said, ‘I’m putting so much burden on Jennifer and the family. I can’t keep doing that.’”

That leaves open the question of how the Giants will fill Krukow’s seat on the NBC Sports Bay Area broadcast. Baer told SFGATE the team is still “decompressing” from this weekend and won’t make any determination for a while now. Kuiper told the San Francisco Standard in August that he’d “like to know what’s going on” with the replacement plans, and Baer told SFGATE on Tuesday the Giants will talk to all three remaining broadcasters — Kuiper, Hall of Famer Jon Miller and Dave Flemming — before they make any decision.

Over the years, Giants games regularly saw all four broadcasters deployed, with Krukow and Kuiper on television while Miller and Flemming were on radio. There’s always been some crossover to other media at times, though, as both Kuiper and Miller have worked fewer road games in recent years (especially since Kuiper has faced his own health issues, like his recently revealed throat cancer). When Kuiper is “on assignment,” the broadcast team’s term for not working a game, the Giants typically move Flemming over from radio to the television side.

Since Krukow hasn’t been able to travel for several years, several ex-Giants have already taken turns at the analyst job: Hunter Pence, Shawn Estes and Javier Lopez. In an interview with SFGATE last week, Lopez said his time in the broadcaster’s seat has only made him appreciate Krukow’s talent more.

“There’s a lot of things you have to process and try to keep it simple, and there are times where I want to express something, but I struggle with the words that I want to use to say that,” Lopez said. “With his wit, his humor and his knowledge of the game, he keeps it simple but keeps it relatable and really lets you focus on what you see. When I listen to them, it feels like you’re on a couch or you’re at a bar having a conversation.”

Pence, Estes and Lopez would likely be in the mix if the Giants want to pick a full-time replacement. But there are other factors to consider for each: Lopez lives in Georgia and also works in the front office as an adviser to Buster Posey; Estes lives in Arizona and is also a valuable contributor on NBC Sports Bay Area’s pre- and postgame shows; and Pence does a lot of MLB promotional events that take him around the world, plus he’s done national television work for Netflix, Apple TV and Peacock in recent years. In theory, the Giants could take the “closer by committee” strategy some teams use on the field and apply it to their analyst spot for the broadcasts.

The Giants have also built a deeper roster of people who have, to this point, mostly helped on the radio side: play-by-play broadcasters Joe Ritzo and Glen Kuiper (Duane’s brother and the ex-A’s TV announcer) as well as F.P. Santangelo, the ex-Giants utility man and longtime TV analyst for the Washington Nationals. In an interview with SFGATE last week, Santangelo referred to the four-man main Giants broadcasting team as “my heroes” and specifically highlighted Krukow and Kuiper, saying the duo took him “under their wing” once he proved he was serious about broadcasting.

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“Sometimes, I would text Duane in-game asking, ‘What do I say right now?’ because there’s a no-hitter going on,” Santangelo told SFGATE. “There were times this year where I was doing the postgame wrap with John and Mike and Duane just pinching myself, because they’re the Mount Rushmore for us.”

Santangelo’s TV background could make him an option as an analyst. The Giants could also consider making Santangelo a regular on the radio side and shifting Flemming over to television full-time. And one surprising option the Giants could consider, if they want a person from Krukow’s era, is the aforementioned Will Clark.

The Giants legend hosts a baseball podcast with Eric Byrnes, the former big leaguer who grew up a Giants fan, and isn’t afraid to be candid about the team on the podcast — albeit with some rather colorful language. Clark told SFGATE he’d be happy to hop on the television broadcast.

“I’ve actually told the Giants on several occasions, ‘Hey, if you need somebody to step in here and there, I’ll step in,’” Clark said. “Yeah, I get a little colorful on the podcast, but I can clean it up for regular [television]. And a guy like myself or Kruk or Kuiper, we have a lot of stories to tell — and some of the stories are pretty damn funny.” 

Clark lives in Louisiana most of the time but does myriad roles for the Giants as a special ambassador, including helping as a minor league instructor and working with the Giants Community Fund. Adding in a few series of television work is something he said he’d love to do. 

There is also the option that Krukow himself can occasionally come back as a guest in the booth for a weekend or two, something several of the other broadcasters have hinted at in recent weeks. Who would object to a weekend of Krukow back on the microphone, after all? Baer said the Giants “obviously would love that” but it’ll be up to Krukow.

Whether that’s a realistic option or not, the fact remains: There will be a lot of broadcasts that the Giants need someone in Krukow’s old chair. There’s clear intrigue there — Lopez told SFGATE last Friday that he was discussing the options with Clark at a dinner the night prior. But the general sentiment permeating the group is helping out however the Giants ask.

“Unlike other markets or teams, like it’s a broadcast team here — like, there’s no egos,” Santangelo said. “Nobody cares who’s doing what, the radio guys get along with the TV guys, and it’s a family and it’s a team. In other markets, maybe the radio guys don’t get along with the TV guys, or even maybe the two TV guys on the air don’t get along with each other. But they’ve created such a wonderful atmosphere and such a culture here that it truly is a broadcast team in every sense of the word.”

No matter who or how the Giants decide to go, though, anyone that sits inside the newly christened “Kruk and Kuip Broadcast Booth” knows they won’t be the man who just retired.

“Nobody’s going to replace Mike,” Santangelo said. “There will be people filling in that role, but nobody’s going to replace Mike.”