Buster Posey didn’t dance around it. The Giants’ president of baseball operations sat down on KNBR’s “Murph and Markus” on Thursday and laid out a direct, unfiltered evaluation of his first-year manager Tony Vitello. And it wasn’t what you’d expect from a team sitting 14 games under .500.
“My frank evaluation is Tony and his staff are doing a really good job,” Posey said.
That’s a striking statement for a club that stumbled into the All-Star break at 41-55, fourth in the NL West and 19.5 games behind the Dodgers. The Giants have been erratic, inconsistent and frankly hard to watch for long stretches. Their pitching staff ranked near the bottom third of MLB over the first half. The offense hasn’t been much better. Expectations were higher than this.
But Posey sees something the standings don’t show.
The Hire That Raised Eyebrows
Vitello came to San Francisco without a single day of professional coaching experience. His entire resume was built at the University of Tennessee, where he turned the Volunteers into a national powerhouse. But the leap from college to the big leagues is a massive one, and plenty of people questioned whether Posey had made a mistake by going that route.
Posey made the call anyway. And now, with the Giants buried in the standings, he’s standing by it.
He acknowledged the obvious disconnect between his assessment and the losing record. But he emphasized that he’s inside the building every day, watching Vitello work, seeing the staff grind through solutions. From his vantage point, the effort and process are there. The results just aren’t following yet.
That kind of organizational cover matters. Posey could have hedged. He could have offered a noncommittal “we’ll evaluate at the end of the year” and let the second half play out. Instead, he gave Vitello a clear vote of confidence while the team is still losing.
What Comes Next
Firing a first-year manager midseason would raise real questions about Posey’s own judgment. If Vitello doesn’t work out, it’s Posey’s hire that failed. So this endorsement isn’t just loyalty. It’s also self-preservation.
But the pressure won’t disappear just because Posey said nice things on the radio. The second half of the season will tell the real story. If the Giants keep losing, the noise will get louder. Vitello’s seat will get warmer. And Posey’s public support will get tested.
For now, though, the front office is all in on the guy who never coached a pro game before this season. That might look foolish in a few months. Or it might look like the kind of patience that actually builds something.
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