The Giants made a MASSIVE decision...

The San Francisco Giants just made a massive decision. We get reports about the future of Tony Vitello and the role he will have with the San Francisco Giants moving forward. We'll break that down here on SF Giants Digest. If you're new here, welcome to the channel. I'm your host, Michael Monreal, and if you've been here before, welcome back to SF Giants Digest. We are so glad you found your way back to the channel. Now, before we get into today's video, let me know down in the comment section your thoughts on Tony Vitello in his first year as the Giants manager. Also, if you haven't yet, make sure to go down below, hit that like button, hit that subscribe button. About 75% of you guys watching the videos are not actually subscribed to the channel. It's completely free, takes just a second of your time, and really does help the channel continue to bring the best Giants content and analysis on YouTube. So if you enjoyed today's video, make sure to go down below, hit that like button, hit that subscribe button. That'd be much appreciated by myself and everyone here at Digest Media. Now, getting into today's video, we have a lot to talk about, but as you probably saw from the intro and what I wanted to hear from you guys in the comment section today, we are talking about Tony Vitello and what his first season in Major League Baseball looked like, what his future looks like, and just kind of the whole conversation around the manager who came directly from the college ranks, the first guy to jump directly from NCAA Baseball to the top step of a Major League Baseball dugout. Now, we have gotten updates officially that he will be back with the Giants next season. Now, John Shea of the San Francisco Standard, I believe, was the first person to break that, and he did so in this article for the SO Standard saying, Buster Posey expresses confidence in Tony Vitello's future with the So, despite some really bad baseball over the course of the 2026 campaign, especially after Sunday's game that Tony Vitello called a juco level game, that might be a little on the nicer side. I think it looked more like a high school game in my humble opinion, but either way, Tony Vitello will be back after his first season in Major League Baseball, and to be completely honest, I'm not necessarily surprised. I never expected him to be fired. I think the Giants could have won 40 games this season, and Tony Vitello would have been back because he was set up for failure. I think this was a learning year all along, but we'll get a little bit deeper into that conversation in a moment. Just going a little bit further, John Shea also wrote, The Giants manager Tony Vitello says that the experience he's getting will make him a little more educated on things that need to get done next year. Now, obviously, there's been a lot of really interesting situations this season that you don't typically get when you have an experienced Major League Baseball manager, and obviously, you don't want that, but I think you probably expected those when you hired a guy who has zero professional experience in Tony Vitello, a guy who came from Tennessee, has been in the college rinks forever, and has never stepped foot on a professional baseball field or in a professional baseball dugout. So, I'm glad he's learned a lot, and you talk about how he handled the Devers situation. Earlier in the year when he said, this one's on me, I told the guys to blame me, and Robbie Ray said, hey, we're adults. We're professional baseball players. We can take this on the chin. It's on us, too. There's just been some really interesting quotes, especially right when he got to spring training, saying, you know, who broke the news that I was coming to the Giants? That wasn't supposed to get out. Just, there's been a few interesting ways he's handled the media that could have been better, but again, he's learning. It's his first season in professional baseball, and I think the Giants were going to give him a little bit of grace either way, because he has zero experience, and clearly, clearly, clearly, this is the guy that Buster Posey wanted at the helm. Now, we'll get into my theory in a few seconds, but just going off what the season has looked like for the San Francisco Giants so far. Clearly, it has been extremely, extremely underwhelming. The Giants are currently 51-73, a game better than the Colorado Rockies. So, it's never good when you're in the conversation with that team, and the Giants are barely ahead of them. It really would benefit the Giants to not finish last in the National League. Not just the National League, finishing last in the NL West is a bad look. Your rivals with the Dodgers, your, you know, division rivals, the Padres, the Diamondbacks, those are teams fighting for wild card spots. You finishing last behind the Rockies is not a good look. The only upside is that the farm system looks great, and you can bank on that, say, hey, we'll be good in a year, we'll be good in two years down the line. So, that's the only upside, but right now, the Giants really need to fight to beat the Rockies in the NL and NL West rankings. Now, before we get out of here, I did want to mention one of the more recent things that happened after Sunday's game. This came from Joseph Dykus. He was covering the Giants game. He said, it had more of a feel of a lower level game, a junior college game, as opposed to a big league game. And then he says, manager Tony Vitello said he had a meeting with the San Francisco Giants after the sloppy game. And that second line is the part I want to focus on. It really feels like we haven't gotten full-fledged Tony Vitello since he's come to Major League Baseball. We talked about the stories we've heard of him in Tennessee at the University of Tennessee. He was a fiery coach. He took charge. He really took the reins as the head coach of that program and turned things around. It seems like he's been a little hesitant to do that in Major League Baseball with the San Francisco Giants. And that was the biggest question when Buster Posey made this decision. How is he going to handle the Rafael Devers, the Willie Adamas, the Matt Chapmans, the guys who are making 20 to $30 million a year? How is he going to handle those egos? And I don't think he's done necessarily a bad job of doing so. I just think that he could have been doing a much better job and he really needs to take hold of this roster. I believe it was Alex Pavlich on the most recent Giants talk episode talking about why was Willie Adamas playing through these injuries? Why was Matt Chapman playing through these injuries? Tony Vitello needs to be the guy to say, hey, you're not playing today. You need to take a day off. We can't have you clogging up a hole in the lineup when you're not healthy. You're not doing us any better by being on the field. Those calls need to be coming from Tony Vitello and he can't just let Matt Chapman say, hey, I'm good. I'm going to play today. That can't be their decision. So that's one thing that you want to see next season. Him take a little bit more reign in the decision-making process of the everyday lineup. And I think we are starting to see that coming from this meeting that happened after Sunday's game. It did seem like he kind of let the clubhouse hear, you know, you know, kind of a little bit, which we wanted to hear earlier in the season. It's been a completely underwhelming season. The Giants are one of the worst teams in baseball, and it really feels like we haven't heard a lot of Tony Vitello getting on them, teaching them, developing them, teaching them the fundamentals of the game, which is one of the things he's been supposed to do since coming from the University of Tennessee. So it is nice to see a report like this. And it feels like we are finally, finally, finally starting to see the Tony Vitello that was promised to us coming from Tennessee. Obviously, he's going to be a little bit more professional. It's going to be a little bit different than how he acted as an NCAA coach, but you still want that personality. You still want that fire. You still want that leadership that helped him turn around that program from one of the bottom feeders of the SEC to arguably the best program in the SEC in, you know, the last half decade probably. So I do think there's still a lot of growth to come from Tony Vitello, but this is where my interesting theory comes into play. Now, I don't know how many of you guys are still watching the video at this point, but part of me thinks that Buster Posey knew this was a lost season, and he brought in Tony Vitello right now because he thought, hey, what if we bring in Vitello, let him get two to three years under his belt as a big league manager. He doesn't have any experience, obviously. And then once the Joshua Gonzalez is, the Luis Hernandez is, the Gavin Keelans, the Bo Davidson, once this next wave of young talent is up, Tony Vitello will be a seasoned MLB manager. He will have that experience under his belt, and then he will be ready to fully develop, fully help those guys get their feet wet in Major League Baseball and lead the next era of Giants baseball. Now, is that true? Who knows? Maybe Buster Posey just had an abysmal offseason on accident. Maybe he thought those moves were really going to work out, but I do wonder if, you know, in the back of his head, Buster Posey was thinking, hey, even if this roster doesn't win in the next two to three years, Tony Vitello will get his experience and he'll be ready for the next wave of Giants talent. That's going to do it for today's video. Again, let me know down in the comments your thoughts on Tony Vitello officially being back with the Giants next season. I think everybody knew he would be back, but now it is official, coming from the Giants, coming from John Shay of the San Francisco Standard. Mike Krukow was on KMBR, said he loved the fact that Tony Vitello will be back, and personally, I do too. Let me know down in the comments your thoughts on the situation on Tony Vitello's first season and his future with the San Francisco Giants. And as always, if you enjoyed today's video, make sure to go down below, hit that like button, hit that subscribe button. As always, thank you so much for watching and we will see you next time.