The San Francisco Giants still have an opening for a manager.

The name Gabe Kapler is linked to the Giants.

That’s a problem.

And it is part of a bigger problem in baseball. The problem of minimizing, downplaying or outright ignoring issues of domestic violence and sexual assault.

We saw it over the weekend, with the disturbing behavior of Astros assistant general manager Brandon Taubman, who used his team’s ALCS-clinching celebration to aggressively yell at female reporters his support of Roberto Osuna, according to multiple reports. Osuna, the team’s closer, was acquired at a bargain price while he was serving a 75-game suspension for violating baseball’s policy on domestic violence.

And we’ve seen such trivializing of sexual assault in the past. Plenty of times. Including with Kapler, who is a leading candidate for the Giants’ job and is in the interview process, The Chronicle reported.

First, let’s talk about Kapler on the field. He wasn’t a good manager. A strange choice from the start, in two seasons in Philadelphia, he was the epitome of average, winning 161 games over two years and finishing third in the NL East in 2018. This season was even worse; the Phillies finished a disappointing fourth, despite opening the vault for Bryce Harper. Six games out and in second place Aug. 5, the team faded miserably down the stretch. Kapler’s team was called lifeless at crucial moments, and the manager reportedly was disliked by players and staff and loathed by fans.

Not exactly ringing on-field credentials.

But the most damning line in Kapler’s resume doesn’t have anything to do with wins and losses. It stems from his time with the Dodgers, when he was the director of player development.

That, of course, is where he forged a relationship with Farhan Zaidi, now the man conducting the Giants’ managerial search. So, let’s hope the interest in Kapler is merely a courtesy, extended by a former colleague, and not real interest.

Because Kapler’s time with the Dodgers included some disturbing details.

In February of this year, several news outlets reported on troubling revelations of how Kapler handled past incidents of allegations brought by two women against players in the Dodgers’ farm system.

In 2015, Kapler received emails from a 17-year-old girl and her grandmother describing an incident in which the underage female was in a hotel room with two Dodgers minor leaguers and two women in Arizona. They alleged that after a lot of partying, the other women beat up the girl while one of the baseball players captured it on video on his phone and uploaded it.

Rather than report the incident to the police, Kapler tried to set up a dinner with the players and the victim and mediate it himself. The grandmother declined, citing her granddaughter’s fear.

In a statement after the Washington Post wrote about this incident in February, Kapler said, “Perhaps I should have taken it out of her hands, but my intention was to respect the victim and her wishes.” He also stated how seriously he takes acts of violence against women.

A week after the alleged incident, the girl told police that one of the players sexually assaulted her before the attack; Kapler said he had no knowledge of that allegation. According to Sports Illustrated, the Dodgers subsequently hired a lawyer for the player, who advised him not to speak to the police and issued a statement that there was nothing incorrect about the way the case was handled.

Later that year, another Dodgers minor leaguer was accused of a sexual assault on a maid at the same hotel. Kapler was made aware of the accusation, according to Sports Illustrated. He was the highest-ranking executive on an internal email chain about the incident, and described himself as embarrassed and said he spoke to the hotel manager. The player in question later was released.

The incidents were not reported to Major League Baseball. In the summer of 2015, MLB adopted a policy on how to handle incidents of domestic and sexual abuse. One of the Dodgers’ minor-league system incidents came before the policy was in place, one came after.

But the existence of official policy isn’t really relevant when it comes to a leader doing the right thing.

MLB learned of the incidents in 2017, only because they were reported to them by Nick Francona, who had worked under Kapler. The Dodgers and Kapler characterized the actions of Francona — the son of Cleveland manager Terry Francona — as the act of a disgruntled former employer.

Perhaps. That’s also not particularly relevant, as there are police reports and electronic documentation to support what Nick Francona has said.

MLB cleared Kapler in its internal investigation and issued the following statement: “The Dodgers and Gabe Kapler did their best to act appropriately given the facts known to them at the time. As is often the case, the allegations related to the incidents have changed over time. Moreover, some of the purported facts about these three incidents come from an individual without firsthand knowledge of the underlying incidents and with questionable motivations.”

That’s the kind of bland “we did our due diligence” statement that usually gets issued in these types of incidents. Baseball and other professional sports leagues seemingly want to move on, bury or minimize the allegations.

Clearly, the Astros don’t want anyone to talk about Osuna’s ugly past, which makes the aggressive harassment of female reporters by a team executive so distasteful. Sports Illustrated asked for a statement from the team before publishing its account. The Astros didn’t provide one, but issued one after publication, describing the article as “irresponsible,” basically calling the reporter a liar, even though there were multiple witnesses. On Tuesday, MLB announced it was launching an investigation into the matter and Taubman apologized for his “overexuberance.”

Will MLB and its teams start taking these issues seriously? Will they start holding the perpetrators accountable and stop blaming both the victims and those who ask questions about such troubling incidents, be they lower-level employees or members of the media?

The Giants are in the process of replacing an honorable man, Bruce Bochy. They are an organization that already has a CEO, Larry Baer, who was involved in a disturbing incident with his wife. They have a legacy to uphold and fans to answer to.

They can do better.

Ann Killion is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Email: akillion@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @annkillion