SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — It’s not only possible but expected that when the Hall of Fame’s special committee convenes in December, the San Francisco Giants will celebrate the induction of not one but two decorated managers who led their teams to the World Series. Dusty Baker and Bruce Bochy are two of just nine men in major-league history who have managed more than 4,000 games. Both are legends of the dugout rail and both are on the Giants’ payroll in an advisory role.
They’ll be advising a manager who will be doing this job for the first time. In any professional capacity.
It’s fair to call Tony Vitello’s hiring an experiment, because even he’ll acknowledge he isn’t sure how it is going to turn out. He’s the first person in the modern era to go straight from a college campus (where his hard-charging Volunteers at the University of Tennessee became an NCAA sensation) to lead a major-league dugout without any prior professional playing or coaching experience.
“Who knows if you want to call it the guinea pig or the sacrificial lamb, or if it goes well or doesn’t go well,” Vitello said during his media session at the winter meetings in December. “Who cares?”
The room went silent for a beat.
“I guess I should,” Vitello continued, to laughs from the assembly.
Charming, disarming, outgoing, chatty, funny, a little irreverent. So many of Vitello’s qualities have been on display during his whirlwind, frequent-flier accruing offseason after Giants president of baseball operations Buster Posey leapt with both feet out of the box while selecting the team’s next manager. But can he manage a 162-game season? Can someone who has spent his coaching life training for a 10K push through the mental and physical demands of a marathon?
That’s the question that burns hottest as the Giants report to spring training. But here’s the thing: a manager’s brilliance is usually correlated to the talent level of their roster. And while the Giants have the bones of a solid lineup and rotation, there are all sorts of questions about the connective tissue. Here are three that stand out.
Will the rotation hold up beyond Logan Webb?
Webb has gotten better and better since his breakthrough 2021 season. He’s led the NL in innings for three consecutive years and he’s appeared on Cy Young Award ballots in each of the past four. The Giants squandered so much of that love and labor. They are 67-65 in Webb’s starts over the past four seasons. Even with the league’s most reliable starting pitcher providing quality start after quality start, they’ve circled the drain at .500 on his day to pitch, along with everyone else’s. It’s like the Giants have owned a flourishing flour mill and had no idea how to bake a loaf of bread.
They might want to preheat the oven, at least. It’s hard to imagine that the Giants will break free from their four-year fixation with the .500 mark if they cannot be a winning team behind their best pitcher. That’ll be especially important to achieve because the rest of the rotation is not nearly as bankable. There’s genuine hope that Robbie Ray will be the first-half All-Star and not the second-half pitcher who faded to a 5.54 ERA over his final 12 starts. There’s no way that Ray, 34, should have been pushed to throw 182 1/3 innings (sixth most in the NL) after Tommy John surgery and a right flexor tendon repair limited him to seven starts over the previous two years combined. The 2021 AL Cy Young Award winner will enter this season with a better baseline.
Robbie Ray’s production tailed off in the second half after becoming an All-Star for the second time in his 12-year career. (Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)
If Adrian Houser and Tyler Mahle have a baseline, it’s in serious need of re-chalking. The Giants didn’t want to spend at the top of the free-agent pitching market, so they went with upside plays on short-term deals. That’s a good strategy when you’re looking to round out the rotation with a No.5 starter. But the Giants are doubling down with the middle of their rotation and hoping that Landen Roupp makes a healthy return from his knee injury, too. It’ll be a bad omen if any of their starting five falls by the wayside before Opening Day.
Will Bryce Eldridge be ready to begin the season?
Eldridge is the Giants’ best hitting prospect since Buster Posey, who established himself as an everyday player in the midst of a World Series championship season in 2010. Now it’ll be Posey’s decision to determine when to integrate Eldridge, 21, into the major-league lineup as a designated hitter who can spell Rafael Devers at first base.
It might be assuming too much to say that Eldridge enters the spring with incumbent status. His big-league debut last September was more about an acute roster need than his own readiness. He hit .108 with 13 strikeouts in 28 at-bats, but he also drew seven walks. He didn’t appear overmatched, and when he made contact, it was mostly barreled. He’s also played just 117 games above A-ball.
Is Eldridge ready for an everyday role in the big leagues? It’s an impossible question to answer. But a strong, healthy and confident spring would be a most welcome sight. The Giants certainly want Eldridge to be ready — to the point where a few spring homers might serve as confirmation bias. The signing of Luis Arraez also gives them a backup plan in case it becomes clear that Eldridge needs more seasoning. Arraez signed to be a second baseman but could serve as a lefty DH if needed.
Nothing would lengthen the lineup more, literally and figuratively, than if their slugging, 6-foot-7 top prospect shows that he’s ready to make a major-league impact.
How much internal improvement is realistic?
As the depth chart currently stands, Heliot Ramos would be the starting left fielder on Opening Day. And that means Ramos would end one of the strangest and funniest non-streaks in franchise history. He’d become the first left fielder to start consecutive season openers since Barry Bonds in 2006-07.
You’d think this would be a welcome development after a nearly two-decade carousel that included names like Fred Lewis, Nori Aoki, Mark DeRosa, Jarrett Parker and Dave Roberts (yes, the Dodgers manager, really!). Except Ramos was the worst defensive left fielder in the majors last season. It’ll help to be flanked by Harrison Bader in center, but the Giants need Ramos to fix whatever suddenly made him inexplicably unreliable last season.
They’ll need Jung Hoo Lee to be better as a right fielder, too. They have to improve their baserunning across the board after somehow missing the memo about the rule changes that incentivize taking risks on the bases while finishing last in the National League in stolen bases for the third consecutive season.
And they’ll need at least two or three pitchers on the 40-man roster — or elsewhere in the organization — to establish themselves as reliable options. Otherwise, it’s hard to imagine their wing-and-a-prayer bullpen rising to the challenge of protecting all those one-run games they typically play in their home ballpark. It’s weird to think that Hayden Birdsong could be the most pivotal player in the NL West. There’s also a pretty good chance that he is.
Whether it’s getting Birdsong’s confidence back on the mound, or getting Ramos’ confidence back in left field, or creating an environment where everyone plays like they’re college sophomores who went a little overboard with the eye black, is where Vitello and his coaching staff can make the biggest potential impact. It’s also the area where they will be most highly scrutinized.