EVERYONE is thinking about this...

The 2026 season is officially over for the San Francisco Giants. What went wrong? What went right? We're going to break down all of it here on SF Giants Digest. Today we start with the day-to-day decision maker on the top railing of the dugout. Welcome back to the channel if you've been here before and if you're new here welcome to SF Giants Digest. I'm your host Michael Monreal. Now before we get into today's video let me know your thoughts on Tony Vitello's first season with the San Francisco Giants. Of course I'm about to give you my opinion on what he did but I want to hear what you guys have to say down in the comment section below. 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 watch the videos are not actually subscribed to the channel. We did hit 5,000 subs by the end of the season just in the nick of time so thank you to everyone who subscribed. Thank you to everyone who tuned in during the regular season but I can promise you throughout the offseason throughout the lockout we will have all of the updates. We'll have all of the Giants moves here on SF Giants Digest. Now let's get right into today's video. I don't think it's a secret we are clearly covering Tony Vitello breaking down his inaugural season in professional baseball. Remember this is a guy who came directly from the college ranks as the head coach at the University of Tennessee. He had zero time in professional baseball whatsoever. Never in the minor leagues, never as a player, never in the you know anywhere in professional baseball. He had zero experience so this was a very risky hire from the Giants and Buster Posey and basically we're going to break down what went down in this you know historic hire. I know it may not sound like it because it was such an underwhelming season but this was a historic hire by basically every sense of the word. Now let's get into how the season went overall right. So yesterday the Giants lost 5-1 and from Justice De Los Santos the Giants beat writer for the Mercury News Group They finished their first season under Tony Vitello at 65-97. Not a good record. It's the third most losses in a season since the team moved to San Francisco and you can fact check me on this but I believe it's their fourth worst season ever. So going back to when they were in New York, back to the late 1800s, it's their fourth worst season ever by when that lost record and the most losses they've had. So it was a very underwhelming season. There's no way around that. There's no hiding that. Basically outside of Bryce Eldridge, Rafael Devers, and some of the young guys showing some flashes, it was an abysmal season by every way you look at it. But now let's get into how Tony Vitello did right. That's what we're talking about here and let's start with the biggest one. That's the game management, in-game management, in-game decisions, bullpen management and I do say, I will say, I think I was slightly underwhelmed because the one thing that I said about Tony Vitello once he was hired heading into the regular season. You know we'll see if he's the fiery guy he was at Tennessee. We'll see if he gets ejected, if he gets in umpire's faces. But the one thing I expected him to be you know fine at or at least get by at was his bullpen management and in-game decision because personally I thought that baseball is the same everywhere you go right. Whether it's college, whether it's major league baseball, whether it's high school, it's still the same game and as long as the game didn't speed up on him I thought he'd be relatively fine at those in-game decisions because that was the thing we'd be able to grade him the most on in his rookie season. But I was a little underwhelmed with some of the bullpen management specifically. I thought he made some very interesting choices in terms of you know matchups, you know those favorable matchups for pitchers, when to bring in certain guys, when to take out certain guys. I think early parts of the season he really left in a few of his starters too long. It seemed like he wanted to build a sense of trust with those guys and sometimes it did not work in his favor. And then the biggest thing that I want to point out was Tony Vitello tended to bring in a reliever with one or two outs in an inning, let them finish that inning, and then come back out to start the next inning. And if we're being honest that's just not how relievers are supposed to be used in the modern age of baseball. Sure he can say he wants to change that, he can say he wants to go back to maybe a more college style of baseball where pitchers should be able to do every job basically unless you know you don't want relievers to be starters and starters to be relievers. But you know in terms of relievers they should be able to maybe go in two innings when needed to, maybe start an inning come back the next inning. And that's just not what we've seen to find success in Major League Baseball these days. So that was probably my biggest criticism is I think we need to see less of that next season. Outside of that you know in terms of pinch hitting I think he did start to use his bench a lot more in the second half which I thought was a welcome addition to some of his strategy throughout the game. I liked seeing more of those pinch hit favorable matchups for hitters bringing Drew Gilbert against a righty and stuff like that. So I did think he got better on that side of things. But now I want to transfer into a discussion about how he handled umpires. Now we knew the biggest thing from Tony Vitello coming from the University of Tennessee was his energy, was his fire. That's what he brought to the game and made him a little bit different. Made him a little bit of an outside of the box hire. And I do think we saw a lot more of that personality in the last two-ish months of the season. I think once the Giants realized this season was completely gone. Not that it wasn't gone the entire year but you know from the middle of July to the end of the year maybe the start of August the end of the year when this season was really out of reach. Tony Vitello said okay now I'm going to start being myself. I'm going to start managing these guys like I want to. And we saw a lot more of that personality that Buster Posey thought he was bringing in from the get-go. We saw him getting in umpires faces. We saw him giving it back to umpires when he was getting ejected for no reason really. So I did like to see that and I'm assuming that next year he should come in opening day no matter what this roster looks like. No matter what the outlook of the season looks like. I think he comes in and starts to be more of himself from opening day whenever that is. And that should be a welcome sight for every Giants fan because I think that's what we all thought we were getting from the get-go this season as he came from the University of Tennessee. Now the other thing that tends to go a little untalked about because it's not the biggest deal but I do think Tony Vitello needs to do a better job of managing some of the stuff that happens in the clubhouse if that makes sense. So obviously the biggest thing that happened this year that he I think actually handled pretty well was Rafael Devers shaking him off at first base. Didn't want to come out of the game. Didn't want to get a pinch runner. All of that that whole entire situation was just weird was very strange and you know it made the outsiders people that aren't necessarily tuned in to every day of the San Francisco Giants. It gave Vitello and Devers personally a bad look because of what happened to Devers in Boston and all of that. But I actually think Tony Vitello handled this situation pretty well. He kind of I don't want to say dug it under the rug but he addressed it and said hey me and Devers had a very mature conversation on the plane. I had him come up to my seat. We talked it out for 45 minutes to an hour and we're all good now. I love that guy. He's one of the best sitters in the league and we're all good. It's all smoothed over and I think that's exactly how you handle it. Don't dive too deep into it. You don't want to give out every detail of it to the media to the beat writers. Just handle it in-house and then say hey we're good. We've moved on. There's no reason to worry about that. I loved how he handled that situation but you also go back to spring training when he said hey who leaked the fact that I was taking the job before I officially took it. That whole thing was weird. The second or third game of the year against the Padres when you know he said this loss is on me. Robbie Ray came out and said hey we're big leaguers. You don't have to do that for us. There's just some very interesting things and of course there was I don't remember I believe it was when Matt Chapman told Casey Schmidt to catch the effing ball and Tony Vitello said yeah there's been two or three instances in the clubhouse where stuff's happened. That just doesn't need to be talked about. It doesn't need to be brought up. You don't need to have that narrative out there in the media. So some of that stuff I think should be tightened up a little bit because I think it just causes unnecessary distractions for the team, for the clubhouse, for the coaching staff, for the front office, basically everyone involved at San Francisco Giants. So I do think we got better on that side of things towards the end of the year again. I think we did see some development from Vitello and that's what this season was because let's be honest none of us thought the Giants were winning the World Series this year so I do expect to see a lot more from Vitello next year and if we don't we'll have to have some very tough conversations. Now at the end of the day this hire if it doesn't work out it is fully on Buster Posey. It was his idea he's the well actually it was Zach Manassian who came to him first but then Posey's the one who said hey this actually could be really interesting let's bring him in for an interview they liked what they heard and that's where that process got started right but if this doesn't work out this fully falls on Buster Posey and say the Giants are only 170 games next year and it's another very underwhelming season Buster Posey is going to be in the hot seat and of course Tony Vitello is going to be on the hot seat and that is a nightmare situation for the Giants because they've already been through three managers in the last four years of course Kapler, Melvin and Tony Vitello so I think a lot is riding on this 2027 season however long it is whenever it starts once it gets started I think a lot of people are going to be watching Buster Posey and Tony Vitello to see what goes down in San Francisco in the big 2027 but of course a lot of that also relies on what moves Buster Posey makes in the offseason how he builds up this rotation and this bullpen there's going to be a lot of monitoring these guys situations throughout next season that's going to do it for today's video let me know your thoughts on Tony Vitello's rookie season in San Francisco I think it was a very entertaining season amidst one of the worst losing seasons in the history of San Francisco but at the end of the day it was a developmental year I won't bring up my theory that Buster Posey knew this team wasn't contending and wanted to get Vitello some years under his belt before the Josuar Gonzalez's and the Bo Davidson and the Weiss Hernandez's and the Jackson are up in the big leagues so then he's ready to coach those guys but that is for a different conversation if you enjoyed today's video make sure to go down below hit that like button hit that subscribe button and as I said leave a comment let me know your thoughts on Tony Vitello and his rookie season as always thank you so much for watching and we will see you next time