What Buster Posey and Tony Vitello are saying about the Giants manager's future

Buster Posey , the San Francisco Giants ' top baseball executive, has made it clear that manager Tony Vitello is in the team's plans for next year.

Posey told the Chronicle that he "explicitly" has informed Vitello that he will be back.

"Obviously, he's his own man," Posey said. "I haven't felt once in any conversation that we've had that there's any thoughts about jumping ship. All of our conversations are future-oriented, like, 'What do we have to do to get this right?' So if he wasn't (returning) it would come as a surprise to me."

Vitello talks often and fondly of his college coaching days, understandable since he's less than a year removed from Tennessee, a place he truly loved working. Wistful as he might sound about the Vols and the SEC sometimes, Vitello is a competitor at heart. He's got a challenge in San Francisco and wants to see it through.

"When you get somewhere, you always want to leave it better," he said in a conversation with the Chronicle, "and I'm personally willing to go through hell or high water to do that."

Vitello is under contract for two more years, at $3.5 million per season, with a vesting option for 2029 based on making the postseason in 2028, but his contract has been bought out before - the Giants spent $3 million to free him up from Tennessee.

Vitello is a perennial winner in the college ranks, idolized and with complete power at the Division I level. The Giants, meanwhile, have been beyond disappointing, the major decisions are made above him and the media and fans are far more critical. An awful season is no fun for anyone, but most especially for those in charge.

Vitello is perhaps the greatest recruiter in college baseball history, which always will make him one of the hottest commodities in Division I. Should he show any inkling he'd like to step back into his old world, plenty of deep-pocket schools would be happy to come to some sort of agreement with the Giants to free Vitello up from the remaining two years on his deal.

The only college sport in his immediate future, though, is football, Vitello said.

"The only tie I have to college is I'm super juiced to go to college football games this year, and I still remain loyal to Tennessee," he said. "But now I can go to Tuscaloosa and not be criticized."

Vitello's lack of pro experience has been questioned since Posey hired him last fall and it still pops up as a topic even with the season winding down, especially after this weekend's umpiring crew seemingly raised the issue when Vitello was ejected Friday night. He described the interactions with the crew after he was tossed as getting "personal, real quick."

Because he's the first college coach hired as an MLB manager with no previous pro experience in the modern era, Vitello feels some responsibility to represent that cohort well. When asked about umpires questioning his credentials, for instance, he mentioned that former All-Star Troy Tulowitzki is now a college coach - it works both ways, and he doesn't need to be the poster boy for all things college-to-pro. Milwaukee 's Pat Murphy, the former Arizona State coach, had some pro experience, of course, but he has wowed at both levels.

"People keep throwing in my face, they're cheering for you because they want it to work for other people - and it's already worked for other people," Vitello said.

He just truly believes that some things he and others bring from the top amateur level can translate in the majors, saying that he and director of pitching Frank Anderson, who came with Vitello from Tennessee, "realize a good chunk of what's being done in college can be done here," particularly when it comes to player preparation.

The team's five consecutive non-winning seasons are a first in franchise history. Vitello's primary goal is to get the Giants back to relevance, "and I want to do it right now," he said. "I think we've slowly started to do some things, and I'm willing to go to hell and back to make it look better on the field and for there to be improvement."

Vitello's relationship with veteran players such as Willy Adames , Rafael Devers and Matt Chapman is evolving with the greater familiarity that comes with a full season. "It didn't make sense for me to come in guns blazing," Vitello said, "but now I'm in a different place with those guys."

"Tony is a pretty smart and savvy guy," Posey said. "Most people would agree that if you have a first-year coach, a college coach, come in and be extremely heavy-handed with veteran players, it's probably not going to be the way you want to start. I think he was really aware he needed to prove he was willing to come in and work every day and show he had their back.

"I put my former player hat on and I think if I'm in the clubhouse and a new manager comes in, one that lacks professional experience, and acts like he's got all the answers, it wouldn't go over well."

Posey, who first voiced his desire to bring Vitello back next season to the San Francisco Standard, describes Vitello's fire to win as much like his own.

"I just see him as a guy who, like most all of us, is so competitive that when you get knocked down, you want a chance to figure it out," Posey said. "You want to prove that you can do it."

Teams typically make decisions on the rest of the coaching staff after the season, and with the Giants at the bottom of the NL West most of the way, it's not hard to imagine there might be some changes, but that might not necessarily be the case.

"I'll speak for myself," Posey said, "I think the coaching staff's done a nice job. 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?' 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.

"Ultimately, my belief is you leave it up to the manager to set it how he wants to set it. Those are conversations that we'll have with Tony for the remainder of the year and into the offseason."