The Giants officially introduced new manager Tony Vitello during a press conference on Thursday. San Francisco hired the 47-year-old out of the University of Tennessee, where he had been arguably the best college baseball coach in the country. He signed a three-year contract that reportedly pays $3.5 million per season and comes with a vesting option for 2029. According to Alex Pavlović of NBC Sports Bay Areathe option would vest if the Giants make the playoffs in 2028.
The rental will cost the Giants quite a bit more than $3.5 million in the first season. Maria Guardado of MLB.com was among those who noted that the Giants also covered Vitello’s $3 million buyout to terminate his contract with Tennessee. John Shea of the San Francisco Standard notes that they are also eating $4 million in dead money after exercising their 2026 option on Bob Melvin’s contract in July.
The move from Melvin to Vitello will cost the Giants $10.5 million in the first year. Of course, firing Melvin and hiring Vitello were two separate decisions. Pavlovic writes that president of baseball operations Buster Posey decided to leave Melvin well before the end of the regular season, even though they didn’t make the move until the first day of the offseason.
The Giants picked up Melvin’s option on July 1, but went into a tailspin over the next six weeks. They were sold at the deadline after a 9-15 showing in July, and it seems like that more or less sealed Melvin’s fate. Pavlovic suggests the Giants might have made a change even if they had managed to clinch the final Wild Card spot (though one imagines a deep playoff run would have changed the calculus). The Giants finished the season at .500, and the Mets’ collapse allowed an 83-win Reds team to sneak into the postseason.
Posey credited general manager Zack Minasian with first suggesting the possibility of making a run at Vitello. “There were some rumors (in 2024) that teams wanted and tried to talk to him, and I thought about it for us when we started putting the list together,” Minasian told reporters, including Pavlovic. “It was a name that I thought would be interesting to talk to Buster about individually, rather than just sending ‘here are the 30 names we have’. I told him I think Tony would be very interesting to talk to. I don’t think it took him long to respond, ‘Yes, I think so.’”
That didn’t ensure Vitello would get the job. The Giants are also understood to have interviewed Rangers special assistant Nick Hundley, Royals third base coach Vance Wilson and future Angels manager Kurt Suzuki. Shea reports that they also had a formal interview with former Orioles skipper Brandon Hyde. It was already known that Posey and Hyde had spoken, but it was not clear until today whether that was an official management interview or a conversation about another possible role. Hundley was widely seen as the early favorite, but he sidelined himself due to family commitments.
Vitello told reporters that he has had preliminary discussions as he assembles his first MLB coaching staff. Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic includes a number of options. He notes that Vitello was a teammate of Twins bench coach Jayce Tingler, who led the Padres from 2020-21.
Tingler was Rocco Baldelli’s top assistant in Minnesota for the past four seasons, but the Twins fired Baldelli and named Derek Shelton as their manager. Meanwhile, Baggarly says the Giants could try to bring back former outfield/first base coach Antoan Richardson. Richardson served in that role for four seasons before leaving to take the first base coaching job with the Mets in 2024. This week it was reported that he would not be back in Queens because the teams could not agree on a new contract.
#Giants #Notes #Vitello #Hyde #coaching #staff