FINDING HIS WAY: Tony Vitello Opens Up on Giants' Difficult Season

0:00This is the Lockdown Podcast Network celebrating 10 years of your team every day. Is Tony Vitello finally starting to prove that he truly is the man for the job? He's coming up right now on Lockdown Giants. You are Lockdown Giants, your daily San Francisco Giants Podcast. The Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. What's up, y'all? Want to lock down Giants? Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network. My name is Alan Styles talking Giants baseball with you Monday through Friday. And today is no different on today's show. Yeah, the showdown finally happened. Andrew Baggier Lee sat down with Tony Vitello. They had a nice Q&A session for the athletic we have. All of those highlights for you. Yahoo sports take a swing at what went wrong with the Giants this season.

1:02Obviously a lot of us got some ideas. We have some thoughts on that as well. And last but not least has the Giants continue to power through and try to break records on pulling up and signing the most guys ever in the history of baseball. At least it feels like it Duncan David, a profile on Duncan David who they just added. But we start with the with the right up with the Q&A with Andrew Baggier Lee and Tony Vitello. If you remember the rumor was at the beginning of the season, I think spring training had just started Tony Vitello when a bunch of reporters and kind of media members sat down to do. I think it was just a scrum in a dugout. Tony Vitello started it by saying who said that it was already done at a certain time before things had been kind of released. And I'm not quite sure if anybody actually said anything back, but then he followed up and said, yeah, that could have changed the course of history or something fairly important

2:07that he said then he had to walk all that back. That was before the season even started. So the I guess rumor was that that came up because that was the first day the athletic was there. And essentially Tony Vitello kind of felt like that was there doing right because they did have the story first which or at least that's how I recall it. It was Andrew Baggier Lee who kind of broke it on that Saturday and said, hey, this is getting some momentum here. It was over the weekend. I know that Saturday or Sunday. So since that happened, then on the flip side of it, you have Andrew Baggier Lee and his articles and how a lot of giant fans have said, hey, some of his articles seem to be a bit skewed negatively towards Tony Vitello. So enough with the rumors, enough with the TMZ, let's just have these two sit down, hash it out and answer some questions. And that's exactly what they did. Tony Vitello's Q&A, Giants Manager on what he's learned during a disappointing first season.

3:13There's a wall of frame photos in the visiting manager's office at PNC Park. They depict every current manager at a younger stage in their life. For most of them, it's an action shot from their major league plan career for others. It's a picture of them managing in the minor leagues. Well, I know where this is going to start off with Mr. Baggier Lee. Tony Vitello is on the far left second row from the bottom. He's clean shaven, bat perched on a shoulder, the brim of his University of Missouri ball cap bent into a proper trucker's bill. Do not take a picture of that picture of me on the wall. Vitello said with the laugh, it's a pretty bad one. They did me a little dirty right there. The forearms do look bigger though. In many ways, Vitello is still that walk on player at Missouri, the one who could have lost his place on the team at any moment, who staying power was rooted in showing up on time, being willing to outwork the next guy, who sometimes let his insecurities get the better of him, but stubbornly refused to let anyone else's opinions add to them. So, and then he says those unflattering opinions are everywhere these days.

4:16Okay, so that's how Baggier Lee kind of starts it off. Let's get to the questions and the answers. Before the season began, one topic that kept coming up was how you'd handle not just playing more games, but losing more games, which even the best teams will do a third of the time. Unfortunately, it's a skill you've had to practice often this season in eight years of Tennessee. Your team's lost just 85 SEC games. The giants have lost almost that many games already. How has that process gone for you? Quote, yeah, it's been hard. How do you bounce back from an error, bad pitch, bad game, a close 13, 12 game you lose that was obviously last last week? I mean, that's what the sport is almost built on. How you bounce back? And obviously, it's a little easier to do it when you have a higher success rate, but also the over and over and over will challenge you. So it's been difficult, but whether it's this level or college, I've had the good fortune of being around a lot of really good coaches when I was younger because of my dad. And then guys I played for.

5:17I think I've got a decent sense of did I do my part or not? It's not to say at the end of the game, I'm looking for like who's the most sublime is going to be impossible for everybody to leave this locker room and be flawless tonight. For me, the biggest thing is once the fire comes down from a game, there's more learning points for me than in the past. It's just different. You got wood bats. Everybody can do damage. There's managing what you have in the bullpen and stuff like that. Like any player, I want to have a good night too. And sometimes we win by three runs and I didn't think I had a good day. And I'm just as hard on myself as I was in the past with the differences. It's over and over and over and over and over again. Some of these that will just skip through that are just more about Tony Vitelo, you know, personality, what he does to kind of release and things like that. But we will, we'll leave that to you to check out at home. Another question that I thought was interesting. He says, if you had to pick one person who you leaned on the most for council or just someone

6:17to talk to this season, who would that be? And he says, Luke Cast is a former teammate at Missouri. And the next question here is probably fair to say that no manager could have won with the roster that hasn't been strong enough this year, whether that's due to injuries or underperformance or free agents who haven't worked out. But obviously the results are going to reflect on you. Managers always get more credit and more blame than they deserve. How do you look at it? Do you think this season has been a fair test of your ability? And he says, yeah, I mean, it's been a relentless test. It's kind of coming chapters. What's going on right now? Couldn't be more difficult than what was going on at the beginning of the season. So it depends on what chapter you're looking at. But I've always been a big believer that everyone has a different role in the movie. And if one of us doesn't do well in our part, the movie is going to suffer. So I'm good with it. I'll take the brunt of that. I agree with what you're saying. There's been some things that would have been challenging for any manager to handle or to have success on a given day.

7:19And you could flip it the other way. But I'm in charge. So, you know, and that's just kind of how he ends it there. And the last one I have for you, did the team's rough start, keep you from being the kind of person you want to be in this job. Because that's what everybody has been talking about, right? We want to see that fire. We want to see Tony Vitello be Tony Vitello and have that fire. And he does answer pretty honestly. I think a little bit. I think it's been easier for me to be myself the deeper the season has gotten. I assume people predicted that we'd be a contender on paper. We added some guys. It's Raffi's first full year new vibe. The spring training was so good. I think everybody deep down felt we were going to take the world by storm. And when we didn't write out of the shoot, it put everybody on their heels and I'd be guilty of that too. So that ultimately, I think, answers that question. And one more for you, I think it's a younger team now, whether that's a factor or just having the most of the season under your belt, are you feeling more relaxed or settled into it?

8:21Yeah, I do. I just think there are so many things you don't know until you experience it. You can ask someone like Tony LaRusa all you want, but it'd be like you've gone skydiving and I haven't. You can describe it to me, but did you get nervous that you counted three and you can tell me what the view looks like, but until you actually see it. So great stuff. And you can read the rest from Andrew Baggley. There are a ton of questions here, but I didn't want to go through all of them. But great stuff from Andrew Baggley and Tony Vitello sitting down, hashing it all out. And that's not to say that, you know, when you're a journalist, when you're a reporter, you're not supposed to be nice or quote unquote mean. You're just supposed to give your opinion and report on what's happened. So others can read things and say, well, I think this has this type of flair to it or this type of flair to it. And you can kind of balance those things out, but that's just an opinion on kind of what was written and how things were said and whether you agree with it or not. As far as how I feel about Tony Vitello, look, I've said time and time.

9:21Again, you know on this show that I loved him at Tennessee. I thought there was no way he was leaving because he probably ran Knoxville, right? I mean, they loved him out there. So it was always going to be a learning curve. Things weren't put in front of him. He didn't have, you know, he didn't get to coach a Dodgers team or some ridiculously stacked team, but he also didn't do everything perfect. And he was never going to do everything perfectly. I think now seeing him kind of settle in next season, whenever that is next season is truly going to be where we figure out who Tony Vitello is going to be as a manager. So you know, I always go to my golf analogies. Is it a Mulligan? Not as far as his record is concerned. I mean, his record is his record and it was rough at times, but I do think that the organization more importantly is giving him a bit of a Mulligan and Buster Posey. I mean, Buster Posey, look, he can't get a Mulligan because he's the one who decided not

10:22to go after some of these guys, the pitchers and guys like that. So Buster can't get a Mulligan, but he can give his manager one and say, look, I didn't put you in the best situation. Nobody was perfect this season. A lot of us weren't even good. So let's just go into next season, gain some momentum towards the end of the season and go from there. I think Buster looks a little bit better just on the Raffi Devers trade, saying, okay, well, this is the guy that everybody thought that the Giants traded for. Unfortunately, it didn't work out when they traded for him. What? Last season and this season, a lot of it happened. And whether it was too late, I don't even think the word is too late. It just happened in the Giants word and contention, right? If you removed, what was it? That terrible April and obviously March was shorter. Raffi has basically been the same guy. It's just nobody else, Willie Thomas of the worst season of his career. Matt Chapman wasn't good. There was no pitching. So the Raffi Devers trade, I think Buster, and we'll talk more about this as the season kind of slows there or comes to a close and obviously in the off season.

11:24But I do think Buster gained a couple points back. I know we're talking about Tony Vitello. But I do think Buster also gained a couple points back just with Raffi Devers and of his season. But Tony Vitello, I'm still in, you know, you're going to take a big swing. It's not all going to happen at one time. You got to run your own race. And I think seeing how Tony is and the ejection and things like that, whether we agree with them or not or whether he's getting a quick hook or not, this is what we want to see. Like this is exciting baseball. This is an exciting brand of baseball that the Giants are playing right now with a bunch of guys that a lot of us didn't even know who they were. And that's where Tony Vitello, that same walk on from Missouri, that's where he really does his best work. You got to mix that with talent as well. But this is where we're starting to see him really dig into what Buster was excited about when he brought him in on the other side, Yahoo Sports on what went wrong for the Giants. I can think of a couple things this season, more locked on Giants coming up.

12:31A big thank you to our friends at Amazon for this limited break. This back to school season spend less on your kids with Amazon. You all know how crazy the back to school shopping experience can be. Starts with a few items on the list. Then suddenly you're shopping for supplies, clothes, lunch gear, tech and about 10 other things you didn't see coming. And we know it adds up fast. The cart can just fill up immediately when you start shopping for a few back to school essentials and realize how quickly the list grows, supplies, clothes, lunch gear, headphones. It just keeps going. That's why finding low prices on all the things you need makes such a big difference this time of year. So remember, with Amazon's low back to school prices, just spend less on your kids because every dollar you don't spend on them is a dollar you haven't spent on them. Shop back to school at Amazon and spend less on your kids. Next segment with you. And it's always interesting when kind of a more national outlet takes a swing at a team

13:32that you cover and that you follow. And this is from Yahoo Sports and specifically from Jordan, Shesterman and Jordan is from Cesspita's Barbecue. They're a really big baseball brand and podcasts and partnered with Yahoo. It's a couple of years ago now. So always excited to hear what they have to say. And basically they're going through all the teams that just were eliminated. Okay. From Plough contention. We're eliminated. I think earlier this week, maybe late last week, yeah, earlier this week. So this is how Jordan starts it after four consecutive years, suck at 500 or close to it. The giants enter the 2026 hopes of hopes of finally launching out of mediocrity and into the mix of the national league contenders. Instead, they've plummeted in the opposite direction, finding themselves much closer in the standing to perennial losers, such as the Colorado Rockies, then the downstate rival, the Los Angeles Dodgers. And he basically just breaks down some of the some of the moves that just did not work

14:38out for them and how they can essentially get back on track. He said the Devers conversation, he had one of the worst months of his career in April. Adamis wasn't much better in spring training. Optimism was plentiful by Tello's unwavering energy set in the tone for a squad featuring a number of accomplished players on both sides of the ball. We want to see them again, the flaws in the roster, Posey had constructed, were exposed in a hurry. They didn't score and then they couldn't pitch. So that that wasn't issue. Okay. And I remember this one specifically, the most egregious example of the giant squandering of late lead came August 26 against Cincinnati. The giants led nine, three in the final frame, needing just three outs to complete their first series sweep. And seven straight reds batters reached before the giants could record the first out of the inning. And we know how that goes. So yeah, they're basically highlighting a lot of stuff that we that we already know.

15:39And then goes they go on to say still there are some positives to take away. Devers turning it around the farm system as well. So it's one of those things where and I'll just give you this as he kind of closes it out. So San Francisco's farm system, why they regarded as one of the weakest in the league as recently as 18 months ago, now rates among MLB's best, but these organizational strides carry only so much weight for a marquee franchise that should be delivering annually in the majors, not selling its fan base on a far off future in the minors. It is now on Posey to make the necessary alterations and upgrades to the big league roster to get the giants back to base line of competence before we can even begin to think about legitimate championship contention for everyone involved from ownership and Posey's for an office to the players and coaches in my tellers clubhouse. There's a whole lot to prove in San Francisco moving forward and you might not like it, but Jordan's right.

16:40Jordan is right. And I'm excited, obviously about the the farm system and things like that, but you can't just wait. These guys are 18, 19 years old. You cannot just wait. By the way, I got to check in both Davidson, Fowdeball office foot and had to be helped off the field. So I don't know if we're going to see him for the season ends and I don't know how that affects. I guess it gets a little Adam to the roster, even if you can't play for the rule five stuff. But yeah, at some point, I mean, this is the kind of conversations that we've said before, this is small market stuff. And if you've seen the newest Spider-Man, these are small potatoes. Right now, they could be big potatoes eventually, but when you're spending this much time, talking about farm systems, that just means you stink. And the giants, they did stink this season and that's okay. Right? I mean, it's not okay, but we understand that now. So I do appreciate the realism from Jordan and a lot of you in the comments as well. Sometimes I'm just looking for something to be excited about and sometimes I'm just looking for something to be optimistic about.

17:40But I definitely get it. We cannot sit here like next season. If we're still talking about checking in on what's going on with the Eugene Emeralds and the Richmond Squirrels, that means we probably, the giants probably had another bad season. So that's not a good thing, in my opinion. That is not a good thing. We should be talking about, hey, which players, right, we're so close already or the giants are in the lead. If they really want to, if they really want to take a step and be a contender, which one of these short stops or which one of these prospects are we willing to move? Those are the types of arguments we should be having. Not just sitting here talking about every single prospect, just hoping and praying that one of them work out, which could happen four years from now. That's not the type of stuff that the giants do. They're supposed to have a good farm system. Don't get me wrong, but that shouldn't be the focus for them. That cannot be the focus for them. That's where they have to turn this thing around.

18:42One more segment with you. Duncan David, he's bounced around a little bit. Giants giving him an opportunity. What can he bring to the table? More locked on giants coming up. Running a business shouldn't feel like you're trying to connect a bunch of systems that were never designed to work together. One app for accounting, another for inventory, another for sales, and somehow none of them talk to each other. That's where O2 comes in. O2 is an all-in-one business management software that brings every part of your business together in one powerful platform. From sales and accounting to inventory and marketing, everything works in one place. O2 is one platform to manage, grow, and scale your business. The best organizations know that success isn't just about talent. It's about having everyone working toward the same goal. That's true in sports, just like it is in business. How about when the giants drafted Bryce Eldrush, they knew he was exactly what they needed to bring in as a young star and start to turn over the keys to the next wave of players.

19:44One thing that really stands out is how this organization got everyone pulling in the same direction with that decision. It wasn't just one great player or coach. It was a coordinated effort across the organization that has made it successful. Great organizations win because operations matter. That's why you should get O2. O2 is one platform to manage, grow, and scale your business. Try for free today at od.com slash lock dawn. That's od. O O dot com slash lock dawn. You've waited all off season for this. Now it's time to make every NFL week count because Fandals making this your most rewarding season ever. Whether it's backing a favorite team, building a same game parlay, betting player props, or making picks on the biggest matchups. Fandall gives fans more ways to play throughout the season. For anyone who's new to Fandall, there's an even bigger reason to make this NFL season count. And for new customers, it gets even better. Get $350 in bonus bets.

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21:46in talking about right hander Duncan David off waivers from the Braves. Okay. They're also on the other side designating right hander Spencer Bivens. Spencer Bivens. Great story from a year or two ago. Just hadn't been able to find it wasn't getting opportunities early. Then did get opportunities and it just hasn't really worked out for him. So the giants are going to give Duncan David a go. I believe he is going to go to triple A and then they'll figure out if they're going to bring him up and what to do from there. So yeah. I know a lot of people like I said, we had conversations about Spencer Bivens and bringing him in. But that's the thing at the time. He hadn't got an opportunity. So we had no clue whether or not he was going to whether or not he was going to be better or productive. We just thought, hey, we saw him last season a good bit and the giants were actually better and we haven't seen him this season.

22:47But this was from Pabs. The giants, DFA Spencer Bivens to open a spot for right hand or Duncan David who claimed off waivers from Atlanta and option to triple A. They might reach 70 players before the end of the year. So the deal on David, David never pitched in a major league game for the braves. Atlanta acquired him from the White Sox on deadline day for Joey Bart. That trade was more about alleviating a forthcoming raster crunch and shipping Bart out than it was in adding David whom Chicago had designated for assignment a few hours for the trade. 26 years old, David has pitched in two big league games, both with the White Sox. He worked around a walk to Tasey Scorlis frame against the royals in his debut back in April and Ben Williams and tag him for a home run and his other parents. He throws the 93 miles per hour fastball. And that's a six pitch mix led mostly by 80s mid 80s slider. David has worked in a swing role in Chabla this year, scuffling to a six to nine ERA despite a decent 24% strikeout rate across 73 innings.

23:51So we'll see what David can bring to the table. Obviously, you know, another name where we don't know if we're going to be praising his production for the next five years here. But you know, giants give another guy's opportunities to see what they can do. By the way, almost went the whole show without giving a clap, given a round of applause, a golf clap to the giants. I know they had that weird sweep, but they got a full on sweep to the Cardinals and they did it in a really cool way with that comeback victory yesterday. So very exciting for the giants. I almost skipped it. And these are the pesky giants, the San Francisco Rivercats are pesky and some of them weren't even in Sacramento with the river cats yet. Now I know normally this annoys people like me for them to kind of get hot because they're not even really hot. They're just playing an exciting brand of baseball watching Jonah Cox and guys like that. But it's different to me because they're so far out of it. We were all just looking for a little feel good. And the giants are starting to give us a little feel good.

24:52How that rose over to next season remains to be seen. But I'm just happy that we're getting just a little something from the giants before the season ends and I'll take that all day. Thank you for listening to Lockdown Giants. Thank you for watching Lockdown Giants. Be sure to follow me on social media at the underscore styles files. I don't know what side it's on styles with an eye now on video. We say to the first ever 24 seven YouTube channel on MLB and on audio check out locked on MLB game night for your second. Listen, we will talk to you tomorrow. Until then, peace. Spend less time searching a more time actually interviewing candidate to check all your boxes with less stress less time and more results. When you need the right person to cut through the chaos, this is a job for indeed sponsor jobs and listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsor job credit. Help get your job. The premium status it deserves indeed dot com slash podcast. Just go to indie dot com slash podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard

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