San Francisco Giants manager Tony Vitello spoke with the media on Monday, but started things off with a question of his own.
“When did you first think I was taking this job?” the rookie manager asked the gaggle of reporters. “Do you remember that far back?”
San Francisco Chronicle reporter Susan Slusser was sitting next to Vitello and told him, “It was about four days before it actually happened. Five days before.”
Vitello was announced as the new manager of the Giants on October 22, 2025, following eight seasons as the head coach of the Tennessee Volunteers. The timing of the reporting around his interest and eventual acceptance of the job still seems to irk him.
“Yeah, that’s funny you say that because that was not reality at all,” Vitello said. “I don’t know if Buster (Posey) would feel the same way, but that wasn’t the case. Somebody decides they think they got the information. The final blow was about four days later.”
“I’m just kind of having a conversation, therapy, if you will, from walking out of there. I needed confirmation from the coaches that I worked with, that helped boost my status, that they were okay with what was gonna go on, and they were going to be okay with their jobs. That staff had always been built as next man up, and all of a sudden that was being threatened. So it was kind of hard to do something for yourself, and your teammates get left behind.
“But yeah, it was not four days, for what it’s worth. That was not the case at all. If you would’ve seen me in my condo, you would’ve, you would’ve agreed.”
It was certainly an odd way to kick off his press conference, and Vitello, who is prone to speaking (and spitting) freely, was asked why he felt like he needed to clarify that now.
“Because somebody tweeted it out,” Vitello said. “I don’t know who told them. I wish I did. And it might have changed the course of history if I would’ve known who did, to be honest with you. But it just bothers me because, I don’t know, you see people angry on the — I hate to get philosophical — but you see people angry on the streets for, a lot of times, stuff that’s not even true, you know? People arguing, and you don’t know what reality is.”
As he continued, it sounded like Vitello really wanted to make it clear that he had not put that information out there and did not want it out until he could let his current staff and players know the situation. And when that didn’t happen, it left him in an uncomfortable position, having to tell everyone after the fact.
“I did a really damn good job at keeping that away from our team, our recruiting, and it was not a distraction,” Vitello said. “And then all of a sudden, in the middle of practice, I see our first and third base coach freaking out, and they freaked out on me, too. And for no reason, because at that point, nothing was going to happen.
“But somebody decided that it was going to happen, and then the whole world started spinning real, real quick. And I had to address the team.”
Perhaps most importantly, Vitello wanted to make clear that his potential departure was not a distraction for his players.
“People said either that or me leaving was a distraction,” he said. “Those guys are SEC athletes. They ain’t distracted by me. We dealt with years where they thought we might take a job, or we were offered a job, or there was jobs open. I’d meet with guys in the office, they’re like: ‘Coach, we don’t care.’ The guys care about the guys when the season’s going on, and hopefully they love their coaches, but that thing was never a distraction. They got talent, and they got good kids, so they’re going to be just fine.
“Yeah, that was not a fun Saturday, and then it kind of affected how the next few days went. But ultimately, sorry to rain on your parade,” he said, while nodding towards Slusser. “Great organization, great people to work with and a great challenge, so [I] didn’t say no.”
Months later, Giants manager Tony Vitello laments premature reports about his hiring in an impromptu “tangent” to start the morning media session: https://t.co/JJn9jRmdkY via @sfchronicle
— Susan Slusser (@susanslusser) February 16, 2026
While Vitello might feel like he needed to get all of that off his chest, there were probably better ways to go about it. It feels like the kind of thing he might have saved for a profile piece or in a sit-down interview. The longer this went on, the more it started to feel like a “Sir, this is a Wendy’s” scenario.
In this context, in front of so many media members and with the situation far behind him, there was a “the manager doth protest too much” quality to it that is likely to create conversations and thoughts that weren’t there before. He also seemed to be not so subtly pushing back directly on Slusser, which doesn’t seem like the best of ideas when you’re new in town, given her sizable impact and reputation in the industry.