In November 2019, the San Francisco Giants hired Kapler as their 37th manager, succeeding the retiring Bruce Bochy. He inherited a team that had a win–loss record of in 2019. In 2020, Kapler hired three hitting coaches who were young enough to still be players, the Giants veteran hitters raved about how well prepared they were going into games with the new approach, Kapler platooned whenever he thought he could get an advantage, and the resulting turnaround with the Giants hitters was significant. While the team had ranked 28th, 29th, and 29th in runs the prior three seasons, under Kapler they finished 8th in runs, averaging 4.98 runs per game, up from 4.19 the prior year and 3.72 in 2018. Kapler used 1.25 pinch hitters per game, more than any other manager in major league baseball, and the third-most pitchers per game (4.9). Both new and veteran players responded positively to Kapler, and a number of them highlighted his steadiness as a factor in turning around slumping years. In the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, he managed the team to a record that far exceeded expectations in what was expected to be a rebuilding year, and surpassed the record of Kapler's former team, the Phillies. The Giants fell just short of making the playoffs, which they would have made had they won their last game of the season, which they lost by one run. They ended up with the same win–loss record as the Milwaukee Brewers, but it was the Brewers that advanced to the playoffs as they had a better in-division record. Kapler received three third-place votes for NL Manager of the Year. 2021: NL Manager of the Year and the Sporting News NL Manager of the Year Kapler began the 2021 season with a coaching staff of 13 that included nine who had never been on a major league staff before he hired them, and most of them were young enough to be playing themselves. Kapler won his 200th game as a manager in April 2021, becoming the first manager in MLB history with a 200–200 win–loss record over the first 400 games of his career. In the 2021 regular season, his Giants won more games than any other major league team (107; with his team's winning percentage rising from .483 to .660), the 12 overturns caused by his challenges were tied with those of LA's Dave Roberts for the