Giants execs Buster Posey, Zack Minasian reflect on Tony Vitello hiring process originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
Weeks removed from introducing Tony Vitello as the new Giants manager, president of baseball operations Buster Posey and general manager Zack Minasian had time to reflect on the process at the General Managers Meetings in Las Vegas last week.
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The confidence in the move has only grown within the Giants’ front office.
“He’s so good with the media and he’s got a great presence about him, and I think it’s something that he enjoys doing,” Posey said of Vitello to NBC Sports Bay Area’s Alex Pavlovic on the “Giants Talk” podcast. “That’s a good thing, because he’s about to do it a lot coming up here in his first season.”
From star MLB pitchers to Hall of Fame quarterbacks, there has been no shortage of praise for Vitello. His popularity has made an impression on Posey.
“I’ve heard from a lot of people about him,” Posey said. “It seems that he knows a lot of different people in a lot of different walks of life. We’ve all seen it over the last couple of weeks.”
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Although Minasian hasn’t been a GM for too long, he has been a part of many interview processes. He worked with the Milwaukee Brewers in the scouting department during the hirings of Ron Roenicke and Craig Counsell, and with the Giants in a similar role when the team hired Gabe Kapler and Bob Melvin.
In his second offseason as Giants GM, Minasian has seen an evolution in interview processes, which now include interviews over Zoom and through phone calls in addition to in-person meetings.
While some interviews test candidates with in-game situations, the Giants did not put Vitello through that.
“I know there’s some interview processes where there has been legitimate game situation video up and the potential manager is being asked what they would do in a certain situation,” Minasian recalled. “We didn’t go to that extent with Tony.”
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The Giants were sold on Vitello’s proven relationship and leadership skills. Situational-based decision making will be developed as a collaboration between the new MLB coach and the front office.
“I think we’re all pretty open to Tony entering a little bit of a different world from what he’s experienced,” Minasian noted. “We talked about it, we all acknowledged it, but we didn’t necessarily try and test his knowledge on when do you want to flip the left-hander to the right side, and when you’re bringing this reliever in …
“I think those are things, hopefully, that we can collaborate on and have good conversations during the spring and even in the offseason.”
The Giants have built a brain trust of franchise legends such as Posey and former managers Dusty Baker and Bruce Bochy, who all will lend a hand to Vitello in his quest into uncharted MLB territory.
“I’ve really enjoyed getting to know him even more since we made the hire,” Posey said. “Still very, very excited about him.”
