![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/posey2-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\nSAN FRANCISCO \u2014 The morning fog has morphed into a sunny 59-degree afternoon, but it sounds like thunder inside Oracle Park. Amid the applause, the guest of honor stands behind a lectern, flanked by posters of his playing days, all of which bear the same message: \u201cThank You Buster.\u201d<\/p>\n
The pregame ceremony on Buster Posey Day, the first Saturday of May 2022, is a tribute to what the San Francisco Giants call \u201can unparalleled legacy.\u201d Bruce Bochy, his former manager, says it was \u201can honor to have a front row seat watching one of the best ever do his thing.\u201d Those in attendance laugh and reminisce and occasionally dab at the corners of their eyes.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard to know where to start, with all those kind words,\u201d Posey says after thanking the crowd. \u201cMakes me a little uncomfortable, as you all know, with all those nice things being said about me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before abruptly retiring the previous November, Posey spent 12 years as a homegrown star. Drafted in 2008, Posey won Rookie of the Year in 2010 and MVP in 2012, becoming the first National League catcher to do so in 40 years. He was a seven-time All-Star and an integral part of World Series winners in 2010, 2012 and 2014. Scores of Bay Area pets \u2014 and even some children \u2014 are named in his honor.<\/p>\n
The ceremony was a chance to say goodbye to a player who had earned immense respect around baseball, but whom many didn\u2019t expect to see around the park until the next World Series reunion. Posey had already moved back home to Georgia. He shot down questions about managing or coaching, saying his focus was on family time with his wife, Kristen, and two sets of twins. Teammates joked that he was probably getting ready to grow a beard and go fishing.<\/p>\n
Four months later, Posey somewhat shockingly joined the Giants\u2019 ownership group, which added a seat for him on its six-person board of directors. Two years after that, he was named the team\u2019s president of baseball operations, effectively winning a power struggle with incumbent Farhan Zaidi, who was dismissed in the same September 2024 press release.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been a tumultuous two years since. Built to win now, this year\u2019s Giants (50-71)\u00a0are barreling toward a fifth consecutive non-winning season for the first time in franchise history. Posey invested more than a half billion dollars in an underperforming veteran core. His free-agent signing of shortstop Willy Adames has misfired. His big-swing trade for slugging Boston Red Sox first baseman Rafael Devers may hamstring the club for years to come.<\/p>\n
Posey took his biggest risk this winter when he hired manager Tony Vitello from college to the big leagues in an unprecedented jump that has exhibited some very public growing pains. Off the field, fallout from the team\u2019s June Pride Night controversy made national headlines, and Posey\u2019s refusal to speak about it later made things exponentially worse.<\/p>\n
Posey may have been uncomfortable with the praise showered upon him at his retirement ceremony, but for a player who garnered nearly universal admiration, he is now grappling with an entirely new sentiment from the Giants fan base: anger.<\/p>\n
The Giants’ Buster Posey put his legacy on the line. Will it work?<\/p>\n
Brittany Ghiroli and more<\/p>\n
Posey\u2019s ascent, unimpeded by an external candidate search, is at least in part a nostalgia play, an enormous risk in an industry that has become careful and data driven. One longtime MLB executive likened the direct jump from player to president to eating at a Michelin-star restaurant, then going to the grocery store to try to replicate the meal yourself.<\/p>\n
He doesn\u2019t need the money nor the spotlight that comes along with this job. He has almost nothing to gain. Yet here Posey is, putting his sterling reputation on the line.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s either really admirable or really foolish,\u201d said another rival executive who, like others interviewed, spoke on the condition of anonymity because he wasn\u2019t authorized to speak publicly. \u201cAnd we\u2019ll know which when it\u2019s over.\u201d<\/p>\n
Posey is more than halfway through a three-year contract that runs until the end of 2027, the same season in which he likely will be voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility. How long he will remain the Giants\u2019 chief decision-maker beyond that remains to be seen.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you want to sit here?\u201d Posey gestures to a high-top table in an empty booth behind home plate during batting practice. \u201cWe can watch some baseball, at least.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s early July. He has spent much of the afternoon in windowless rooms preparing for the weekend\u2019s amateur draft. Despite the Giants\u2019 struggles, watching baseball remains one of the best parts of Posey\u2019s job.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m here because I believe I can do this,\u201d he says at the beginning of an hour-long conversation. \u201cNot to sound harsh, but I try not to sweat some opinions out there that I wouldn\u2019t ask for advice.\u201d<\/p>\n
At 39, he has a little more gray in his temples, but otherwise Posey looks exactly like he did on the field. The Giants are coming off a rare complete win over the Blue Jays. In a few hours, they\u2019ll be down 8-0 in the third inning. The next day, they\u2019ll be nearly no-hit by Toronto All-Star Dylan Cease.<\/p>\n
It was clear by early June that the season was off the rails. The Giants have never been above .500. The roster construction is flawed. The bullpen has been a significant problem, particularly in the ninth inning. Posey took significant heat on local radio earlier this season for saying he \u201cdidn\u2019t regret\u201d not signing a closer in the offseason.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt like we had other needs that were more pressing,\u201d Posey reiterates. \u201cIt was a gamble I took.\u201d<\/p>\n
The expensive veteran infield trio of third baseman Matt Chapman, Devers and Adames proved immovable at the trade deadline. Chapman, who had season-ending hernia surgery Tuesday, posted a .692 OPS in 84 games. Adames, 31 next month, is on pace for the worst season of his career with a 0.2 fWAR through 115 games. Devers has rebounded from a brutal start and was heavily shopped at the deadline, but to move him, the Giants have to absorb a significant amount of the remaining money on a 10-year, $313.5 million contract that runs through 2033.<\/p>\n
The architect of the roster has been grappling with something he never did as a player: lack of control. Rival executives warned Posey to not live and die with every win or loss, that the further you get away from the field, the harder it is to live with the results.<\/p>\n
Posey sighs. He\u2019s quiet for a minute, trying to articulate how different his current role is from the one that made him a star.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have control over trades or signings or who to release, but it\u2019s very concise,\u201d Posey says. \u201cMaybe there\u2019s a buildup to those decisions, but then they happen in a small moment of time. Then you live with those decisions, and sometimes there\u2019s not anything you can do to rectify it if you want to go back on something.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhereas if I make a poor decision on a swing at the plate,\u201d Posey snaps his fingers. \u201cI can change that on the next pitch.\u201d<\/p>\n
Posey hasn\u2019t been afraid to take big swings. He was instrumental in extending Chapman \u2014 overstepping Zaidi, who was in charge at the time \u2014 and didn\u2019t hesitate to sign Adames to a franchise-record, seven-year, $182 million deal before the 2025 season. The Devers trade made sense at the time, giving the Giants the big-name slugger they kept missing in free agency. But in retrospect, the timing looks off.<\/p>\n
Devers is a big bat built for a win-now team. The Giants aren\u2019t contending, and the 29-year-old\u2019s contract may soon be an albatross, one that the Red Sox were happy to shed. While he was a three-time All-Star in Boston, some in the organization found Devers immature and selfish. On more than one occasion, Devers became upset when asked to honor the age-old practice of letting veteran players with more service time hit first in the batting cages. One former Red Sox star threatened to start swinging with Devers still in the cage if he didn\u2019t move.<\/p>\n
There is no easy way out for Posey, who told local media after the Aug. 3 trade deadline \u2014 when he drew largely favorable reviews \u2014 he \u201cwas glad\u201d to have Devers, Adames and Chapman still on the team.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n Buster Posey, pictured, made an unconventional move in hiring the University of Tennessee\u2019s Tony Vitello as manager in 2025. (Andy Kuno \/ San Francisco Giants \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n
One of the biggest decisions a baseball operations head makes is who mans the dugout. Wooing Vitello away from the University of Tennessee wasn\u2019t just risky, it was head-scratching to many in the industry. With nine managerial openings across the league, the market was flooded with experienced talent \u2013 making Posey\u2019s college hire all the more startling.<\/p>\n
Posey inherited veteran Bob Melvin but dismissed him at the end of 2025, just three months after a public show of support when he picked up Melvin\u2019s \u201826 option. It marked the third straight season in which the Giants had made a significant leadership change, with former manager Gabe Kapler fired at the end of 2023. Posey said, at the time, the turnover wasn\u2019t ideal but was necessary for a win-now 2025 group that went 29-36 in the second half.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, we talked about it a lot, what the standards are for the Giants,\u201d Posey said after dismissing Melvin. \u201cWe have high standards. I hold myself to those same standards.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unwilling to wade into the top tiers of free agency this winter, San Francisco is spending roughly $10.5 million on the manager spot \u2014\u00a0a $4 million buyout to Melvin, a $3 million buyout to Tennessee and a reported $3.5 million salary for Vitello, who signed a three-year contract.<\/p>\n
Lack of fundamentals is a league-wide problem, but incidents in which Giants players didn\u2019t know the correct number of outs or cover the right base \u2014 Adames has been guilty of both this season \u2014\u00a0reflect poorly on Vitello and his new coaching staff. The rookie manager told players to treat him as a teammate, which raised eyebrows. Vitello has had clear issues deploying his bullpen and leading professional athletes making tens of millions of dollars. Perhaps no moment encapsulated that more than Devers temporarily refusing to exit a June 21 game after Vitello called for a pinch runner in the top of the ninth, then storming off to the dugout. Some inside and outside of the organization fear Vitello is too deferential to big leaguers and wonder if he might lose control of the clubhouse, if he hasn\u2019t already.<\/p>\n
Vitello is expected to return next season. You get only so many managers, and Posey may not be able to afford another about-face.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the challenges in this job is trying to understand when is the time to act and when is it time to not and just hold the course,\u201d Posey says. \u201cI look at the job that Tony and his staff are doing, I don\u2019t have any reason not to believe that what they\u2019re doing isn\u2019t gonna get us to a place where we\u2019re playing more consistent winning baseball.\u201d<\/p>\n
2027 will be a big season for Vitello. It will be even bigger for Posey.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo I want to take this on?\u201d<\/p>\n
Before the news became public, when only a small group of people knew Zaidi was going to be ousted, the enormity of what Posey was signing up for hit him.<\/p>\n
Upon joining the Giants\u2019 board, Posey made it clear that he had no interest in Zaidi\u2019s job. But two years later, Posey took the lead in stalled extension negotiations<\/a> with Chapman. It was clear then: Posey wasn\u2019t merely a feel-good figurehead.<\/p>\n He had already moved back to the Bay Area with his family. He was three years removed from playing, the daily pain in his back and hip made more manageable by not spending hours a day behind the plate. Posey could have continued to play a part in the organization without being the Giants\u2019 top guy. But the competitive juices that saw him abandon hobbies four months into retirement never went away.<\/p>\n \u201cDid I want my younger kids to see Dad just not do anything?\u201d he muses.<\/p>\n Posey was initially seen as a savior. Fans had soured on Zaidi \u2014 who led the organization to a franchise-record 107 wins in 2021, Posey\u2019s last, followed by consecutive non-winning seasons \u2014\u00a0and were tired of being spurned by big-name free agents. Posey, beloved as ever, would give the Giants an identity again.<\/p>\n It was, Giants chairman Greg Johnson later made clear, Posey\u2019s idea.<\/p>\n \n Buster Posey says Giants fans, in person, have been overwhelmingly supportive. (Lachlan Cunningham \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n If he valued legacy above everything, he wouldn\u2019t be here. Several top executives estimate it can take a decade of learning to figure out how to lead 400-plus people, the intricacies of player development and how to react when things go sideways.<\/p>\n Posey\u2019s closest comparison is Derek Jeter, the five-time World Series-winning New York Yankees icon who was part of the Bruce Sherman-led ownership group that bought the Miami Marlins in September 2017. Jeter, like Posey, owned a small stake in the organization and was named CEO with no prior front office experience. Miami went 218-327 during his time as key decision-maker before Jeter stepped down and relinquished his ownership stake in 2022 citing a \u201cdifference in vision.\u201d<\/p>\n But Jeter never played for the Marlins. Imagine the spotlight \u2014 and scrutiny \u2014\u00a0if Jeter had taken over the Yankees. \u201cJeter\u2019s every move would have been eaten alive by the press,\u201d said a team executive. \u201cThat is Posey\u2019s reality.\u201d<\/p>\n And it\u2019s one he willingly accepted. Posey said he decided to take the job after driving over the Bay Bridge nearly every day and catching himself fantasizing about the Oracle Park stands being full in October again. The image drove him past any hesitation.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was definitely the realization of, \u2018Wow, this is a big job,\u2019\u201d Posey says. \u201cBut once I got to that point, a strength of mine is always knowing when I put my head down at night I did all I could. I\u2019m going to give this job my all and see if it works out, which I believe it will. If it doesn\u2019t, I\u2019ve got my group of people that care about me, and ultimately, that\u2019s what matters.\u201d<\/p>\n Posey can\u2019t recall a stint of prolonged bad press when he played, but this year\u2019s club is one of baseball\u2019s biggest disappointments, and local and national media have questioned both his ability to lead and job security. Recent headlines reference a \u201clegacy tarnished\u201d and \u201cinstitutional failure.\u201d After a segment on the Giants\u2019 flagship radio station in mid-July, Posey was ripped on a hot mic<\/a>.<\/p>\n But nothing put him in the national crosshairs more than a June 23 news conference in which Posey opened with a brief statement, then declined to answer<\/a> multiple questions about the controversy that erupted 11 days prior, when four players declined to wear rainbow-logo Pride Night hats or wrote Bible verses next to the team logo in protest.<\/p>\n His head bowed and eyes downcast, Posey looked so uncomfortable in the terse session that a Giants PR staffer threatened to end it if reporters didn\u2019t stick to baseball questions. Whether Posey should have been the one to answer those questions instead of Johnson or CEO Larry Baer was, in the moment, immaterial. Here was the franchise\u2019s iconic leader looking like a wilted flower \u2014\u00a0and realizing that the president of baseball operations is responsible for more than baseball.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s probably something I underestimated a little bit,\u201d Posey says. \u201cThere\u2019s times where if there\u2019s an issue with the clubhouse staff, sometimes that\u2019s gonna make its way up to me. Or if there\u2019s something on a larger scale, it\u2019s gonna make its way to me. It\u2019s certainly more than just baseball decisions.<\/p>\n \u201cI always tell young major leaguers, \u2018You have to understand your responsibility now is more than just a baseball player. You\u2019re an ambassador to the game, you\u2019re an ambassador to your team and really to your family as well, and that extends beyond what you do on the field.\u2019 I had that sense as a player, but maybe I didn\u2019t realize the magnitude of it in this role.\u201d<\/p>\n Posey feels burned by some in the media. He\u2019s not on social media but is well aware of the online backlash. In person, he said, fans have been overwhelmingly supportive. Encouraging even.<\/p>\n \u201cI haven\u2019t had anybody berate me publicly,\u201d he says. \u201cIt would be kind of interesting if they did.\u201d<\/p>\n One of the criticisms Jeter faced with the Marlins was the idea that perhaps he was too big of an icon, that no one in the organization would feel comfortable pushing back. Posey, asked if this is a problem in San Francisco, said he purposely tries to listen, not talk, and let other people chime in in big group discussions.<\/p>\n He interviewed external candidates for outgoing general manager Pete Putila, whose departure was announced minutes into Posey\u2019s arrival. The initial thought was Posey would want someone with considerable GM experience, particularly in player development. Ultimately, he promoted the 41-year-old Zack Minasian, who had been VP of scouting, from within.<\/p>\n Posey inherited members of Zaidi\u2019s and previous leaders\u2019 front office, but he\u2019s put his own stamp on things. He elevated former teammate Randy Winn from a scouting role to vice president of player development, a newly created<\/a> position. He hired Jeff Berry, his former agent at CAA, as a special assistant. Both Vitello and Adames are CAA clients.<\/p>\n Does Posey think he has surrounded himself with yes men?<\/p>\n \u201cI certainly hope not. Could I answer you definitively if that\u2019s a thing or not? I don\u2019t think so. I really don\u2019t,\u201d Posey says when asked directly. \u201cThis is a different team than on the field, but we\u2019re all in this together. \u2026 Ultimately decisions that are made have my name on it for better or worse \u2026 so, it\u2019s going to be my decision at the end.\u201d<\/p>\n Posey has no previous front office experience, making the merits of his inner circle and how he dispatches them even more important as he learns on the job. Zaidi, a GM with the Athletics and Dodgers before coming to San Francisco, failed to sign big names and was criticized for trying to win too much on the margins with copious waiver claims. But to the shock of multiple rival execs, Posey\u2019s Giants have gone days this season with open 40-man roster spots, making just two waiver claims total from April through July.<\/p>\n There have been hits, like the free-agent signing of second baseman Luis Arraez and the emergence of top prospect Bryce Eldridge. At the deadline, Posey received universal praise for trading three pending free agents, Arraez and starters Robbie Ray and Tyler Mahle, along with multiple players under team control, a haul that netted the organization eight young players, including five pitchers. Posey says several times that his goal is to build through the farm system, that pitching will be a significant emphasis moving forward.<\/p>\n Posey\u2019s acquisition of Red Sox infielder Marcelo Mayer could prove to be a big win. Mayer, once seen as a franchise cornerstone, is still just 23. Prospects sell hope, and the Giants farm system, led by a trio of young shortstops, improved enough post-deadline to put them fourth in Baseball America\u2019s latest rankings released Wednesday. The system is deep, though most of the talent is in the lower levels.<\/p>\n For all of San Francisco\u2019s problems, fan interest isn\u2019t one. The Giants are averaging over 36,000 fans a game, sixth-best in baseball<\/a> through the first week in August. With the Athletics\u2019 departure from Oakland, they\u2019re now the only team in the Bay Area. The Giants ranked fifth-highest in Forbes\u2019 most recent MLB franchise valuations and are one of just three teams who own their stadium.<\/p>\n \u201cThey should be the West Coast Yankees,\u201d said a veteran agent. \u201cThey have too much money to be this bad.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Giants](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/posey4-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\n