The Giants could be in for a long season. How is manager Tony Vitello handling the heat?
He's nearing three full months on the job. Throw in spring training, and Tony Vitello is on firm footing as the San Francisco Giants' manager.
Evaluating any leader, especially someone coming in with no pro experience, is tricky. Any grade, with not even half the games played, is an automatic incomplete. It has been rocky going at times, with brief flashes of the team the Giants thought they had before another downturn. If the Giants continue to struggle as much as they have so far, they could wind up with their worst season since losing 98 games in 2017.
*
Read more: Before Tony Vitello, Pat Murphy made a similar jump to MLB. He has advice for the Giants manager
*
What do you think? How is Tony Vitello doing as the Giants' manager?
Fairly or not, Vitello's unusual background, coming straight from the world of college baseball at Tennessee, makes him the central story of the Giants' season. He went straight into the deep end, skippering in the NL West and against the reigning two-time champion Dodgers, and learning on the fly.
More For You
Giants' Willy Adames gets message from Tony Vitello after baserunning gaffe
Willy Adames might be doing a little less chatting when he's on base. San Francisco Giants manager Tony Vitello spoke to the shortstop after Adames forgot the number of outs the night before.
Tony Vitello's first impression of Giants fans? ‘We might raise a little hell'
Tony Vitello hit all the right notes at his first San Francisco Giants FanFest in San Jose. The new manager talked about advisers Bruce Bochy and Dusty Baker, the bullpen and the Dodgers.
Call this, then, a check-in rather than an evaluation. Vitello says he is his own harshest critic, so let's start there. What sort of job does he think he has done to date?
"I think there are a lot of things that we can do better," he said. "One thing that's gone on is when the pitching does well, the hitting struggles, flip-flop. Our offense is doing fairly well, it doesn't have to be on fire, and the pitching staff doing fairly well all combined but we haven't reached that point of consistently putting it all together. That's a North Star that I think is encouraging."
Vitello is learning to tamp down his emotions, too.
"Wearing it on your sleeve and being disappointed and down does not work at all at this level, because the next day you're going to have a game," he said. "In my previous job, a lot of times you have a reset with a practice or a day off to address those things. Here it's wake up, prepare to do it, do it as well as you can and then rinse, repeat, recycle."
Communication is a key aspect of the job, and he was described as a top-notch communicator when hired. Has that been the case so far?
"I think at an increasingly higher level," Vitello said, explaining that early on, he was trying to gauge when to speak to individuals or groups about things he was seeing. "As time has gone on, I think the more free exchange there is the better. It's a little bit of trying to pull things out when we're in group settings, not a lot of guys like to talk, but I'm finding out that when you're in individual settings, guys are much more open to free exchange.
"I would have liked to have been better earlier in the season, but I think some good things have been hashed out, guys have come in disgruntled and we've talked it out."
There were questions when Vitello was hired about how comfortable he might be delivering hard truths to an established veteran. That, he said, is no issue.
"Being the bad guy, I don't mind that at all," Vitello said, but he added that the problems he has seen so far have been from too much effort, rather than anything that required a stern talking-to. "There hasn't been a need to call someone in and say, ‘You're not trying,' or ‘You're being selfish.'"
Rafael Devers, the team's most prominent slugger, came from Boston, where he had butted heads with the front office and, near the end of his time there, seen his relationship with manager Alex Cora sour.
Vitello has said repeatedly how delightful he finds Devers but adds, "We've had some moments. Most of it boils down to getting to know each other, he misreads something I do, I misread something he does, or I'm curious about something and give him a chance to explain and vice versa, too.
"We've definitely had moments, but at the end of the day, it's really been more about that and not much more."
In-game strategy is an area that is not quite where Vitello would like it to be, primarily because he wanted the team to be much more aggressive on the bases. Adding third-base coach Gary Pettis should help in that regard. Through the Giants are last in MLB in steals and among the teams with the fewest extra bases taken, Jung Hoo Lee stole his first three bases of the season in the past week. The hit-and-run is creeping into the offensive arsenal, plus a bunt or two.
"When we started, a lack of having baserunners on or having a lead short-changed a little of what we'd like to do," Vitello said, saying that at that point, hitters by necessity had to focus on finding their swings. "I think as time has gone on, we don't want to just sit still with what we're doing. We've tried to ramp up encouraging the bunting, encouraging the base stealing."
Vitello has been increasingly comfortable with potentially risky late-game moves, twice pinch running for designated hitter Bryce Eldridge in Chicago and choosing to lose the DH by leaving Jonah Cox in as a strong defensive outfield option in close games. It didn't pay off the first time, but did the next. It's tough to argue it wasn't the right move.
Vitello also did something key in that last game at Chicago, showing faith in reliever Keaton Winn and leaving him in to face Pete Crow-Armstrong, who had homered off Winn the day before. Winn retired the Cubs' slugger. Winn and the rest of the team were sure to get the message: The manager has faith in them.
That faith can go sideways, too, however: In Vitello's most criticized move to date, he used Winn for a third straight day on Monday night, coming off a night game and a trip back across two time zones. Winn blew the save against Washington.
The bullpen was a major question mark coming in. There was an initial bump or two with who was getting up and who was coming in. It's tough to blame any manager when an entire bullpen's performance dips. Vitello didn't name a closer until Friday, when Caleb Kilian (3.34 ERA, four saves through Thursday) was given the job. Vitello has called the bullpen "organized chaos."
Bullpen usage is the most heavily scrutinized aspect of the game. Winn's usage last weekend aside, the focus has been on juggling workloads to ensure no one is overworked. Vitello pointed to Jesse Chavez, the bullpen coach, for handling that well. And having the right arm for the situation? Vitello thinks that if he has conviction, he's OK with however the move turns out.
"You got to go to hell and back, it's earning your stripes a different way," Vitello said of the heat on managers with such moves and trying to avoid what plays best to the masses if it's not what he believes is best. "I do feel, because I'm new, I don't want to be a hindrance or an obstacle for our team to win, so the extra pressure to make a perfect move versus ‘let's just do this, because it's safer.'
"If we see something and we're going to do it, you put yourself out there, put it on the line and you've got to be good with it. I think we've done that a couple times, whether people know the occasions or not, and I think you can sleep easier with that."
The lineup card was a definite challenge for a stretch, especially after Eldridge first came up. Playing time for the Giants' top rookie was erratic because he wasn't going to take at-bats from Devers or Casey Schmitt. Vitello now calls that period a "tough spot" and a "delicate balance," but now, with Schmitt in left field until Heliot Ramos returns from injury, Eldridge has played every day and is blossoming into one of the Giants' best hitters. The decision over what to do once Ramos returns will be interesting.
And, yes, Vitello makes out the lineup. The front office, team analysts, coaches, all have a voice, but the final decision is his.
"I think if anything with the lineups I've done a good job of not trying to prove I'm smarter than anybody," he said. "I've stood by the guys and have given guys an opportunity, including Patty," referring to since-traded, light-hitting catcher Patrick Bailey.
Motivation is another aspect of the job, though it's generally not a major factor with adults at the big-league level. It's an area where Vitello excelled at the college level.
"These guys are pros, they don't need motivations and quotes," Vitello said. "It's more about, how do we build the culture we want?"
Here, former manager Bruce Bochy has been a particular help, Vitello said, because few cultivated cohesion as well as Bochy did with the Giants.
Ultimately, though, Vitello has to be himself.
"I think what's made my entire career is guys who throw strikes, hitters that have swagger and have some sort of approach that sticks out," he said, "and then teams that play a little wild."
The emphasis is ensuring players are free to be themselves. Though Vitello had nothing to do with the outfield celebrations that brought the team some attention, it is an indication he has accomplished that goal. The outfielders definitely feel OK doing their thing.
Winning is the ultimate goal, however that looks. So is continuing to improve, and Vitello holds himself to that, too, studying constantly especially as he delves into the mentality of big-league players, how to get them to bounce back more quickly after poor results, how to sustain excellence. But more than anything, he'd like to just let his players loose and get out of the way.
That's more difficult in his first year. The fact the Chronicle is doing this story in June is a good example - Vitello is in the spotlight.
"There is too much focus on me," he said. "I'm guilty of that too, at times. I've always preferred to kind of be in the background; I wasn't a good player, so I was always a guy behind the scenes, but it's harder to do with all of this going on. Now things go on in the course of a game, you get heated and the next thing you know, it's all over Twitter.
"Trying to take the emphasis off of myself as much as possible and let the coaches coach and let the players play is obviously the goal."
What do you think of the job Tony Vitello has done as Giants manager?
The Giants have one of the worst records in baseball and Vitello's decision-making has been under the microscope. How much blame falls on the manager for the team's poor record?
Steven
San Rafael, CA
06/15/26
0
I think that both Bruce Bochy and Bob Melvin have demonstrated to us that you can have all the major league experience in the world and still lead an abysmal Giants team. I'm therefore comfortable watching TV figure it out as he goes. My one major beef with him is how he takes his relievers "around the corner" way too often (leaving them in to pitch a second inning after they've successfully completed their first). These guys are wired to come in, complete their inning, and then be done for the night. When they have to sit in the dugout watching Giants' bats flail and then go back out for another round, they too often get into trouble, leaving them with a bad feeling when a one-inning outing would have left them feeling confident (as relievers always need to feel).
Dave
San Francisco, CA
06/14/26
0
Sometimes TV looks like a deer in the headlights which is understandable. It's early still, but I'd like to see more percentage moves, e.g., righty/lefty matchups. Hopefully there's some learning on how to handle the bullpen (Winn fiasco). This season is basically toast, so the jury is out going forward and that goes for Posey as well.
Dave
San Francisco, CA
06/14/26
0
At times Vitello looks like a deer in the headlights. He doesn't come across as the "manager" of the team unlike Bochy who was boss. Besides the mistake with Winn he doesn't play the percentages, e.g., pinch hitting a lefty against a righty and vice versa. I hope he starts to become more of a big league manager, but I have my doubts.
Voge
Novato, CA
06/14/26
0
Because I have been a life long Giants fan, so I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but after the despicable display of bigotry by the pitchers while Vitello and the other players looked the other way in of all places SAN FRANCISCO…the home of pride, the city that taught the world to be inclusive was allowed to pull a rookie move like that…makes me realize I am sitting this season out. I guess if you're going to take money from the Kushner's you look the other way. Next up at Oracle Park…UFC cage matches..
robert
San Jose, CA
06/14/26
0
He is showing that he is not ready for this job. He is underprepared and out of his depth. His hiring also shows that the GM is really just a good former catcher. Both need to be relieved Posey is also just not the right man.
See More Responses
Copyright 2026 Tribune Content Agency. All Rights Reserved.
This story was originally published June 14, 2026 at 10:38 AM.