SAN FRANCISCO — The traditional end-of-season press conference is generally short on big revelations, and that was the case with the Giants on Tuesday morning at Oracle Park.
The Giants brain trust — Buster Posey, Zack Minasian and Tony Vitello — sat behind a podium and took questions for nearly 40 minutes, generally hinting at what was to come with the bullpen, the injury-ravaged rotation and a lineup full of underperforming veterans. They tried to take some responsibility for a 97-loss season, but there was also plenty of optimism about what’s to come.
Vitello spoke often about being “on an absolute mission” to do as well as possible next year. There was talk about how dangerous Rafael Devers and Bryce Eldridge might be as a duo, and the faith in infielders Matt Chapman and Willy Adames, both of whom struggled and then suffered season-ending injuries.
If you listened to the whole thing, you might think the Giants had just gone 81-81 again, which is why the most important part of the press conference came late, when Posey pivoted after being asked a question about only having one year left on his contract.
“This is kind of off-topic but I was just sitting here thinking about it,” Posey said. “I guess this is more for our fans than anything else — as excited as we were about how well some of our young guys played, I just want to say it out loud: We don’t have blinders on that the wins and losses were still not there with that group.
“I don’t know, it’s just something I was sitting here thinking. Not that we shouldn’t be positive — and I do want to be positive, there’s some really good stuff that we saw from these guys — but I just want to say it, that there’s not blinders that the success as far as wins and losses was still not there.”
It was an important addendum, as well as some necessary self-awareness. Vitello talked often down the stretch about how much grit and energy he was seeing from a young roster, and it might have been easy for some to think a reload started in September and try to make the case that the Giants will be better next season simply because so many young players got their feet wet at the big league level.
But Posey subtly brought a dose of reality into the mix.
Sure, the San Francisco River Cats ran more and played better defense and seemed to be having more fun down the stretch.
They also went 8-16 in September, posting their worst winning percentage in a month. They went 18-32 after the trade deadline, a 104-loss pace. Sure, the pregame vibes might have been better. That group also went 0-9 against the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres over the final two and a half weeks.
None of this was acceptable. None of this, at any point and with any mixture of players, was good baseball. None of this was what the Giants should strive to be in 2027.
“I think we started off the year by pitching pretty well (but) we didn’t hit, and then it switched to, we were hitting a little bit and we weren’t pitching,” Posey said at the start of his press conference. “And then I think things just started to compound. We were not able to get any momentum throughout the year. I think an easy thing to point to is we walked too many guys when we were pitching and then we weren’t drawing enough walks when we were hitting.”
“You mention injuries,” Posey continued. “I want to be clear, we were already in a bad spot before the injuries happened. I don’t think we can sit up here and any of us can say that injuries were the key reason why we were not successful this year.”
The Giants actually had good injury luck early in the year, but they didn’t have a single winning month in 2026. They ended up losing 97 games, the fourth-most in franchise history, and they’ll spend these next few weeks trying to figure out what’s next.
Posey hit on an obvious topic, saying he would “take the blame” for the awful bullpen, which was the result of a lack of offseason spending but also, as Posey said, “probably (overestimating) some of the guys that we had.”
The plan is to address the bullpen first and foremost, Posey said after the press conference. But the rotation isn’t far behind.
“I think the bullpen is where we’ll start. That’s where we’ll start our process,” Posey said during an interview for Thursday’s Giants Talk Podcast. “The rotation will be right behind it. You look at free agents, we’ll look at trades. The thing I have learned in two years is it’s hard to make trades, it’s hard to trade for pitching.
“Obviously it’s extremely valuable, and it’s hard to get people to give up pitching, so we’ll do the best we can there and then continue to hopefully develop arms.”
If there are big changes on the position player side, they weren’t hinted at Tuesday. Posey said Adames will remain at shortstop and the hope is that a healed back allows him to be more functional out there.
The Giants talked to teams about Devers, Adames and Chapman at the deadline, but rival executives believe it will be just about impossible for them to move any of the three ahead of a lockout. Their only hope might be a salary floor that leads to another team needing to take on a big salary.
The Giants also did not announce any staff changes Tuesday, a bit of a surprise given, well, those 97 losses. Posey said they’ll discuss it this month and noted that a couple of changes are possible, but there was no indication Tuesday that a big shakeup is coming for Vitello’s group.
The manager himself has always been safe. He’s under contract for two more seasons, plus an option for 2029 that will vest if the Giants make the postseason in his third year. There might come a time when Vitello himself decides that this isn’t worth it and heads back to college baseball, but for now he’s focused on making it work next year, and Posey said he never had any doubt that his handpicked manager would return.
“It was a tough year,” Posey said. “You think about our record and there’s really not one thing you can point to. There’s a lot of things that went wrong, a lot of things that need to be better, including myself and I mentioned it in the press conference. I’ll take ownership for some of the failure of the bullpen this year and we’re certainly going to address that.
“But I think watching Tony, I think he got more and more comfortable in his role as the season went on. There were some times early on that he was still feeling it out and he mentioned in the press conference earlier that I think he has a better understanding of what a manager is now.”
Vitello lost more games this season than in his final five at Tennessee, but his boss has been through this before. In 2017, the Giants lost a stunning 98 games, and it was four more years before they returned to the postseason.
Posey is realistic about what happened this year, but he’s hopeful that the fix this time is much quicker. His most telling answer Tuesday, that reminder that none of this was positive, came after he answered a question about his own contract status. He has only one year left, although as a member of the ownership group, this isn’t a traditional situation.
“I don’t have any timetable set on it,” Posey said of a potential extension. “I’ve told you guys many times that I want to see this thing through if they’ll let me see it through. I’m invested to try to get this on track.”
Download and follow the Giants Talk Podcast