The San Francisco Giants are planning to have manager Tony Vitello back for the 2027 MLB season.

“Obviously, he’s his own man,” president of baseball operations Buster Posey said, per Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle. “I haven’t felt once in any conversation that we’ve had that there’s any thoughts about jumping ship. All of our conversations are future-oriented, like, ‘What do we have to do to get this right?’ So if he wasn’t (returning) it would come as a surprise to me.”

For his part, Vitello has no intention of leaving the Bay Area in the offseason.

“When you get somewhere, you always want to leave it better,” he told Slusser. “And I’m personally willing to go through hell or high water to do that.”

Posey went on to add he’ll let Vitello decide on whether changes to the coaching staff are warranted.

The Giants are fourth in the National League West at 56-81. Their playoff drought has extended to five years, and they’re on pace for their worst finish since 2017.

There’s plenty of blame to go around.

Willy Adames and Matt Chapman, who combine to earn more than $50 million, have missed time through injury and haven’t delivered at the plate. The pitching staff has been middling at best.

Posey inherited a tough situation when he replaced Farhan Zaidi in September 2024, but he hasn’t exactly made things better.

Hiring Vitello was a bold call that hasn’t worked out yet. While a successful college coach, he hadn’t worked in MLB before, and his inexperience led to a tough learning curve out of the gate. The 47-year-old quickly understood that managing a pro clubhouse is far different than guiding the Tennessee Volunteers.

An organization doesn’t target a manager with Vitello’s profile with the expectation of immediately contending for a World Series, and San Francisco was generally considered to be a fringe playoff threat at best.

Vitello hasn’t made a totally convincing argument for himself to stick around in 2027, and a team shouldn’t retain a manager purely for the sake of continuity or through the front office’s unwillingness to admit it made a mistake.

Having said that, it won’t be a surprise if Vitello is still in the dugout for Opening Day next spring.