Tony Vitello is no stranger to Giants’ franchise lore.
Vitello was a nine-year-old sitting in the right-field seats at Busch Stadium when Will Clark incited a benches-clearing brawl after sliding hard into St. Louis Cardinals second baseman José Oquendo. He remembers watching Kevin Mitchell’s improbable barehanded grab then trying to recreate it himself. Decades later, Vitello sat behind home plate for Game 7 of the 2014 World Series and witnessed Madison Bumgarner pitch five innings of relief to deliver the Giants’ third World Series in five years.
The 47-year-old Vitello rattled off a laundry list of names during last Thursday’s introductory press conference, two of them being future Hall of Famers Bruce Bochy and Dusty Baker. Despite possessing no prior professional experience, Vitello will take on the task of making an unprecedented leap from college to the pros and join the ranks of those icons.
Vitello is no longer responsible for recruiting players like he was at Tennessee — that’s president of baseball operations Buster Posey’s domain. But in the coming weeks, he will be responsible for assembling his coaching staff, a unit that can help cover Vitello’s blind spots as he navigates new obstacles at the major-league level.
“My biggest thing is for everybody to be on the same page,” Vitello said. “Pulling on the same rope is a cliché for a reason. We talked about how long the season is, so it’s important to have a group of guys that are willing to be there through thick and thin. It literally is a marriage for the course of the season.
“For me, it doesn’t have to be the brightest, the best, the most experienced or the best résume. It needs to be the guy that’s going to have your back.”
Posey said in early October after firing Bob Melvin that he wanted to give his new manager agency in creating a coaching staff. While there will be new faces joining the organization, Vitello won’t be starting from scratch. Vitello said on Thursday there had already been conversations about keeping members of last year’s coaching staff; Posey added that he expects holdovers from the previous coaching staff.
Among those returning could be pitching coach J.P. Martinez and assistant hitting coach Oscar Bernard, who are both under contract for next season. In addition to providing continuity, Martinez and Bernard are also bilingual. Vitello has little, if any, experience coaching players from Latin America, so having Spanish-speaking coaches on the pitching and hitting side would be invaluable.
“Who makes up the staff is really key. I think also, just making an effort — which involves work ethic — to meet that challenge in particular head on,” Vitello said of coaching players from Latin America. “Regardless of people’s backgrounds, when you’re in a work environment, you need to get to know who people are and you need to build relationships. You also want to build a trust level there that they’re willing to come to you with certain things.”
Along with Martinez and Bernard, the list of returners could include first-base coach Mark Hallberg, bullpen coach Garvin Alston, catching coach Alex Burg and major-league quality control coach Taira Uematsu.
For all the continuity, there will also be notable changes.
Ryan Christianson and Matt Williams will not return next season after serving as Melvin’s bench coach and third-base coach, respectively. It also remains to be seen whether Pat Burrell will return for a third year as hitting coach after the Giants were a below-average offense in back-to-back seasons.
As far as additions, one potential candidate is Antoan Richardson, who served as the Giants’ first-base coach under former manager Gabe Kapler. Richardson will not return to the Mets in 2026 following two seasons with the team, and a reunion in San Francisco could help revitalize the Giants’ stagnant run game.
The Giants have been the least aggressive stealing team since Major League Baseball implemented rule changes that incentivized stealing. Since 2023, San Francisco ranks last in the majors in steals (193) and attempts (255). The Giants also hasn’t had a player steal at least 30 bases in a single season since Dave Roberts did so in 2007.
Richardson can help in this department. The Mets had the lowest average sprint speed in the majors last season but still finished fifth in the majors in steals (147). Juan Soto, in particular, stole a career-high 38 bases (his previous career-high was 12) despite ranking in the 13th percentile in sprint speed.
“Antoan did an unbelievable job,” Soto said. “He’s been helping me since day one. I give him all the credit.”
“We’re going through names, and he’s obviously a name I’m familiar with and was able to work with him,” Posey said.
Logan Webb knows first-hand how Richardson can impact a ballgame. Webb only allowed nine steals this season en route to winning his first Gold Glove Award, but three of those steals were Webb’s outing against the Mets in late July. When the Giants flew to New York the following week, Webb caught up with Richardson about what he saw.
“He’s a really good baserunning coach,” Webb said.
Another possibility for Vitello’s coaching staff is Jayce Tingler, who played alongside Vitello at Missouri.
Tingler’s experience in the majors would be invaluable for Vitello given his lack of professional experience. Along with managing the San Diego Padres in 2020 and ‘21, Tingler spent four seasons as a coach for the Texas Rangers (‘15, ‘16, ‘18, ‘19) and has spent the last three seasons as the Minnesota Twins’ bench coach under recently-fired manager Rocco Baldelli. Tingler also speaks Spanish and has spent time in both the Dominican Summer League and Dominican Winter League.
With Derek Shelton taking over as the Twins’ manager following Baldelli’s firing, Tingler could very well entertain an opportunity to join his former teammate in San Francisco as a bench coach.
It’s also worth wondering whether Vitello will look back to the college game to fill out his coaching staff. While Vitello is making an unprecedented move, there are recent examples of collegiate assistant coaches leaping from the amateur game to the pros.
Detroit Tigers pitching coach Chris Fetter was the pitching coach at Ball State (2016) and Michigan (2017-20) before joining the Detroit Tigers in ‘21. There’s also Cincinnati Reds pitching coach Derek Johnson, who was the pitching coach at Vanderbilt for a decade before joining the professional ranks.
There’s no shortage of challenges that await Vitello in his first season as a professional. His coaching staff will be invaluable in helping him navigating those inevitable bumps in the road.
