From the moment he debuted with the San Francisco Giants in 2009, perennial All-Star catcher Buster Posey never looked overmatched or like he didn’t belong.
We can’t say the same for Posey’s new career as a lead baseball executive. He’s made several questionable moves throughout his two years with the Giants, most notably the Rafael Devers trade and the hiring of Tennessee Volunteers manager Tony Vitello despite having never worked on a big-league staff.
Those expecting the Giants to dismiss Vitello amid the franchise’s worst season in nearly a decade got rough news on Sunday, as Posey told the San Francisco Chronicle that the first-year skipper will return in 2027.
San Francisco entered play Monday at 56-81 and is on pace for their most losses since 2017. The Giants only have one winning season in that span.
“It’s always a hard thing because people are like, ‘Well, you’re 25 games or whatever under, how can you say they did a nice job?’” Posey said. “But I’m watching them every day and the work that they’re putting in, some of the improvements that [players] are making … From my vantage point, they’ve done a nice job.”
San Francisco Giants fans should give up hope on Buster Posey and Tony Vitello
Vitello’s defenders, if there are any, will argue that he deserves more than one year. But his inability to read the room and succeed at the MLB level goes far beyond the Giants’ win-loss record. Remember back in March when multiple veterans, including former Cy Young winner Robbie Ray, openly disputed the first-year manager’s claim that an Opening Day pregame speech may have made his players too intense?
That same weekend, Vitello joked that he could no longer “talk down” to his players the way he did at Tennessee. Between his comments and getting swept by the Yankees at home, talk about a wonderful first impression.
Nothing has gone right for the Giants this year, and Posey deserves the lion’s share of the blame. He’s the one who fired Bob Melvin only months after the Giants picked up his 2026 option. Posey took a chance on Vitello rather than pursue a proven MLB manager to lead a veteran-heavy team with a rapidly closing playoff window.
Then, there was the Pride Night debacle, where Posey and ownership gradually made things worse. He looked visibly uncomfortable when addressing the situation with reporters and repeatedly insisted that he would only answer baseball-related questions. At one point, a team official even intervened and told reporters to stop asking about multiple pitchers essentially boycotting Pride Night.
Posey is one of the greatest players in modern franchise history, and he’ll appear on his first Hall of Fame ballot this winter. Even if he’s not a first-year inductee, he has a résumé worthy of a bronze plaque and a spot in Cooperstown. The voters have embraced electing those with a dominant peak rather than focusing on traditional counting statistics, which bodes extremely well for the longtime Giants catcher.
The honeymoon period is over, and Posey has done nothing to warrant any optimism about his future as a lead baseball executive. If not for his iconic tenure in San Francisco, he may have already lost his job.
But hey, Posey thinks the Giants are doing a “nice job” amid their fifth consecutive non-winning season. Why a three-time World Series champion is content with mediocrity is beyond us, but his contract expires after next season. We’ll see whether ownership shares Posey’s optimism a year from now.
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