Tony Vitello’s first season running the Giants has already exposed one of the biggest questions around his job: how much of himself is he actually willing to show?
Giants broadcaster Dave Flemming thinks the answer so far is not enough. In his view, Vitello has leaned too far into keeping the peace with the veterans around him when what the team needs is a manager who is more forceful and unmistakably in charge.
“I think he's been so deferential to all of the veterans around him... But the Giants hired him to be him... I want that leadership from him to be a little more obvious."
That criticism lands because there have been several moments this year where Vitello could have made a louder statement and didn’t. When Matt Chapman cussed at Casey Schmitt in San Diego earlier in the year, that could have been the kind of flashpoint where a manager lays down the law.
The same goes for Willy Adames, who was playing paddy cake on the bases with Mookie Betts and forgot how many outs there were. And after Rafael Devers openly defied Vitello and shooed away pinch runner Jonah Cox, Vitello again had a chance to bench a player and send a message.
He never did.
There’s another side to that, of course. Vitello is a rookie manager coming straight from the college ranks, and going after veterans too hard can turn into a clubhouse mess fast. What looks like toughness from the outside can backfire if the room stops responding.
Still, the Giants didn’t hire him to blend in. They brought him in because he was a high-energy presence at the University of Tennessee, a coach who wasn’t afraid to light a fire under his team.
Buster Posey expected that same edge to translate into a detail-oriented style of baseball. That hasn’t happened, but Posey has already made it clear the Giants are not going to abandon the Vitello project after one season.
So the pressure now is less about survival and more about identity. Vitello may simply need more time to grow into the job, and maybe more confidence will come with it. Winning is probably the only thing that will really earn him the clubhouse respect he needs, and whatever the Giants have been doing in 2026 clearly hasn’t worked.
At this point, Vitello might as well stop holding back. If he is still figuring out how to act in the big leagues, the safest move may be the simplest one: be the guy the Giants hired in the first place.
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