Your 2026 Giants: Tony Vitello Introductory Press Conference

 The Giants introduced Tony Vitello today.  Here’s the link to his press conference:  

Your 2026 Giants New Manager: Tony Vitello

As has been announced for a while, the long time ultra successful University of Tennessee head coach, who led his team to multiple College World Series, and won one in 2024, Tony Vitello, was hired to be the Giants 40th manager in franchise history.  He gets a three year contract, with a vesting option (conditions unknown, but likely wins) for a fourth year, making $3.5M per year.  Which is not much more than his current contract with UT. 

Here are some informative articles and videos about the Giants new manager:

• The Athletic Andy Baggarly: Closing in on Vitello, Pursuit of Vitello meaning, Vitello Timeline (subscription required; but you get Andy Baggarly, who broke the story and had been hinting at the connection for a while now, and is a great storyteller and writer, he’s why I subscribe)
• SF Standard John Shea:  YouTube video (Kerry Crowley and John Shea), Posey Hires Vitello (Subscription required)
• NBC Bay Area Sports Alex Pavlovic:  Vitello Hired YouTube, Vitello Hired, Max Scherzer on why Vitello works, Vitello contract, Vitello shares selfish reason to join Giants
• Baseball America:  Vitello Makes Perfect Sense
• MLB.com:  What Vitello MLB players say about him
• KNBR:  Interview with Vitello after Kilen drafted
• The TK Show:  Dave Fleming discusses Vitello hire, quotes people who know him
• Youth Inc:  Vitello YouTube Interview: Building Winners 
• Yahoo Sports:  Five Facts about Vitello 
• Knoxville News:  Vitello’s Approach to Baseball

Your 2026 Giants: Bryce Eldridge

The Giants top prospect made the majors in 2025, giving a glimpse into his potential, as well as the things he needs to work on.

Your 2026 Giants: Patrick Bailey

Bailey is probably the most misunderstood player on the Giants roster, now that Mike Yastrzemski is no longer on the team.  Players with good defense but only okay offense gets maligned because their defensive value isn’t recognized (like JT Snow).  Many fans want him gone, mainly because of his bat. Many also think his framing skills advantage will disappear with the new ABS system.

Your 2025 Giants: Post Mortem

The Giants Front Office did their annual past season (they call it postseason, but I associate that with the playoffs) press conference, which is available on YouTube. Posey doubled down on and reiterated what he said in last year’s press conferences about the Giants strategy:  pitching and defense.  He also said it again in this NBC Sports snippet.  

He said the Giants this offseason will focus on starting pitching, noting how he thought they had SP depth at the start of the season and learned the adage that you never can have enough pitching. He also noted that they will pursue bullpen help as well.  

Your 2025 Giants: Eldridge

Many Giants fans are down on Eldridge already.  But they shouldn’t.

Your 2025 Giants: Roller Coaster Ride

To get so close, only to lose four key games in a row, and two after getting a huge lead to start the game, really hurts to be a Giants fan now. The win of the last game of the AZ series helped, but it is tougher now that the DBacks and Reds are in the mix, on top of the Mets. 

But it is what it is: the Giants, as I said in the preseason, is a team in transition, with youth in development, with holes that need to get filled during the offseason.  Teams like that will have ups and downs, it is the nature of this stage of development of the Giants into a competitive team. The bullpen collapse is part of that up and down.

ogc thoughts 

Some are questioning the deadline trades because of the bullpen collapse. Looking back with hindsight is always done by fans and the media, but usually done wrong: you need to look at the circumstances that precipitated the decisions, and not the bad aftermath of those decisions.  

The situation was pretty clear:  the Giants were dead in the water and needed a miracle collapse by the Mets, as well as a miracle win streak to get back into it. Plus the other teams in between not having an hot streak.  All that happened, what were the odds? Anyone who saw that happening should have made a lot of money betting on that, else you are kidding yourself. 

The Giants did well to acquire a handful of interesting prospects, as well as a good reliever who they still control for a couple more seasons.  Butto (5+ years of control) alone is already a good return for a few months of Rogers, Doval (plus next season) and Yaz. In addition, Gilbert, Tidwell, Rodriguez, Marte, and others, all show interesting potentials to contribute next season and future seasons.

And the bullpen was gutted as a result, so of course it’s now a weak link. The hope was that the group would step up.  So far, they are showing growing pains that happens with young and unproven players.

Hopefully someone will show that they deserve to get more opportunities next season.  I am hopeful that Beck and Winn might be among those to do so, they were on the brink of MLB roster spots after 2023 but then injuries took them out.

And I believe the Giants can be consistently competitive starting next season if they can acquire another top of rotation SP to take the spot behind Webb and Ray and another set up reliever (as well as get Rogers back). 

Competitive Window 2026 and Beyond

Devers, Chapman and Adames is a good core, but has a short 2-3 year window to compete going forward. Chapman is already 33 next season, but at least he does not appear to be slowing down. The hope is that Lee develops further to replace Chapman’s decline, and that Eldridge will rocket skyward in the next couple of years to keep us competitive longer term.  But hope is no guarantee that this will happen, so the Giants need to commit more money to free agents.

This short window is why I don’t see the Giants having any choice but to spend top money for the best pitcher and best reliever (who is not a closer, much like when we signed Affeldt) on the market. Our history of wasting a large percentage of our payroll on closers (Nen, Benitez, Melancon) tells me that we just need to find good pitchers (like Sabean did picking up Casilla and Petit off the scrap heap, or signing Affeldt, or trading for Lopez, or promoting Wilson and Romo from the minors) and giving them opportunities to prove themselves. 

Signing those would just leave open RF, DH, and closer. The starting roster otherwise seems set.

Ramos, despite his poor defense, is still a valuable hitter.  Hopefully an offseason of defensive work will return his confidence, he wasn’t this bad in 2024.  If not, he should still be valuable enough to trade to fill holes midseason. 

Lee hit the wall midseason, as his body wasn’t prepared for a full MLB season, plus this was his first full season since 2022.  Hopefully he can be more consistent and take the next step forward, like his buddy Kim did with SD.  

The infield is set with Bailey, Devers, Schmitt, Chapman and Adames.  Schmitt has done enough to hold the position, and hopefully has another step in development next season. Bailey also could take another step up, and maybe the Giants might even sign him to an extension next spring to buy out his arbitration and free agent years. 

RF can be a mosh pit for Gilbert, Matos, Encarnacion, and others to fight over.  Maybe even LF if Ramos continues to stumble defensively there.  Probably DH as well, I doubt Eldridge will win a spot, he will likely start out in AAA.  And unless he pushes his way up, he’s likely to stay there.

Closer can be fought over by the relievers in the bullpen. The A’s have got by this way for a long time under Billy Beane, the next man up philosophy.  The Sabermetrics tenet is that relievers are fungible.  I would offer the Core Four bullpen as a counterpoint, but right now, this Giants team had only one pitcher like the Core Four, Tyler Rogers, so the slate is clean, let’s find some relievers in the free agent market and in our farm system, and perhaps trade market.

And having a rotation of Webb, Ray and Roupp with another good starting pitcher should be good enough to drive a season of success in competing for a playoff spot. Another top of rotation SP would make our rotation great, and would be great depth should we lose anyone for any reason.  And such a rotation would be a monster in any short playoff series.

As for the last starting pitcher, I am fine with Verlander if they decide to go that way. He has pitched great lately and should be able to repeat well enough next season.  I think that sticking with the prospects (Whisenhunt, Teng, Seymour, Birdsong, Tidwell) would be okay, most teams cycle through a bunch of pitchers in the last spot. If they want to spend money on a mid rotation free agent SP, I would be okay with that as well. Any of these choices should work out.

If I had to choose, if they are signing a free agent, might as well get Verlander. I love his attitude, it should be a lesson to the rest of the team. He’s also an attraction, setting attaining new benchmarks during the season. And he looks like he can pitch well again. 

But at 43, he’s at risk for anything breaking down, so then we got our youth anyway, to force their way up to the majors.  Best of both worlds, because he’s not the only one who could break down. Hopefully they do it before the season ends, and get that settled quickly. 

Your 2025 Giants: It’s Eldridge Time!

As reported, Bryce Eldridge is being called up by the Giants for the last 13 games of this season.  The loss of Dom Smith, for at least the rest of the regular season, if not more, opened up the possibility of calling Eldridge up and Posey made the call after the Giants struggled all weekend trying to score on the Dodgers, who won 2 of 3, and was close to sweeping.  Luis Matos was sent down to open up a MLB 26-man roster space, and Wisely was DFAed to open up a 40-man spot.

Your 2025 Giants: Why Not?

Just watched the Devo documentary over the weekend, and everything is reminding me of them, including the Giants amazing winning streak right now:  (great band, great song):  https://youtu.be/MSqE0Q_mg1s?si=3frKT5p8J7z4HGuh

Your 2025 Giants: Why?!?

I’ve been wondering the same thing:  why?  I posted a comment on The Athletic, then copied and modified it here, then went further and discussed 2026 implications.

Your 2025 Giants: Rest of Giants Draft Picks

Thought I would write some thoughts on the rest of the draft.  The MLB reporter Maria Guardado nicely covered the picks here in this article.  Please read to learn more about the picks.  I will discuss what I think is the strategy with some of the picks, which were overdrafts. 

Your 2025 Giants: At the All Star Break

I thought I would write up some thoughts during the break.

Your 2025 Giants: Thoughts on Rafael Devers

Tons of thoughts running through my head on Rafael Devers, after reading comments about the stellar trade for Rafael Devers. (Finished most of this June 22, but forgot to finish…)

Your 2025 Giants: Drafted SS Gavin Kilen with 13th Overall Pick

In the 2025 MLB draft, the Giants selected SS Gavin Kilen with the 13th overall pick in the first round. Keith Law heard that the Giants were in on RHP Tyler Bremmer, who was ranked around the middle of the first round, but the Angels surprised everyone by selecting him second overall.  

Your 2025 Giants: Buster's Blockbuster Trade for Devers

As announced by the Giants, they have traded for Boston's Rafael Devers, acquiring him in a package headlined by once and future ace, SP Kyle Harrison, SP/RP Jordan Hicks, and prospects OF James Tibbs III and reliever Jose Bello.

Devers (only 28 YO) is in the second season of a ten-year, $313.5M contract, covering him up to age 36 YO season, and there is about $250M left on it.  He hit .272 with 15 HR and 58 RBI in 73 games for the Red Sox this season and has been a great hitter (.859 OPS) for his career with the Red Sox (8.5 seasons).  

Your 2025 Giants: Reviewing The Modern MLB Rotation Chaos Portfolio Theory

Last off season I wrote in a post about how the Giants approached Zaidi’s idea of finding starting pitchers who can get the Giants 162 game starts, as contrasted with the traditional objective of finding 5 32-starts starting pitchers. 

Now that Posey is in charge, I thought it would be interesting to see what the Giants are trying to do this season, which, to me, is very much like last season.  And dig into where they are going to put all these pitchers. 

{Note: wrote most of this before Opening Day; obviously, the pitching has been pretty good so far}

Your 2025 Giants: Dude Rakes!

In a SF Chronicle article on Bryce Eldridge, it was noted that his family has a group chat named “Dude Rakes”, and I have been meaning to do some research on him and how he compares with recent great hitting prospects.

Your 2025 Giants: Opening Day Roster

 The 2025 Giants Opening Day Roster is out, and there were some surprises:

• Catcher:  Bailey, Huff
• Infield:  Wade, Flores, Fitzgerald, Adames, Chapman, Schmitt, Koss
• Outfield:  Ramos, Lee, Yastrzemski, Matos
• Starting Pitching: Webb, Verlander, Ray, Hicks, Roupp
• Relief Pitching:  Walker, Doval, Rogers, Miller, Trivino, Rodriguez, Bivens, Birdsong

Your 2025 Giants: Big 6 Prospects

This season this will be an abbreviated version of my Big Six prospects.  I’ll be mostly doing it from memory plus a bit of player research.

WAR, What Is It Good for: Crossing the Yaz Chasm

With Spring Training coming soon, I thought I would touch on a topic that will occupy the minds of some Giants fans:  Mike Yastrzemski.

A frequent complaint that I saw all through the 2024 season was complaints about playing, and even rostering, Mike Yastrzemski.  Many today still think little of him and his accomplishments as a Giants player.  In this post, I thought I would discuss what I know about WAR's foundations, and what that means about players like Yaz who produce 1.5-2.5 WAR per season.

Your 2025 Giants: Justin Time - Verlander Signs for One Year, $15M

As reported by various sources, future Hall of Famer Justin Verlander signed with the Giants for one year, $15M.  There are a couple of good analyses on why he might be a good signing:

• Fangraphs
• The Athletic