Bob Melvin has been fully exonerated after disastrous 2026 SF Giants season

If one can remember back to last year, there were a fair number of SF Giants fans who thought manager Bob Melvin was the biggest problem with the team. A year later, that obviously couldn’t be further from the truth.

Was Melvin perfect as manager? Absolutely not. He presided over two forgettable seasons in which the Giants were around .500 and didn’t really threaten playoff contention.

2025 was the more damning season because the team was right in the hunt for the National League West title, the Giants made a huge trade for slugger Rafael Devers, and then the team just fell off a cliff and not even a late-season surge could sneak them back into the playoffs.

Many blamed Melvin for not having the energy to shake the team out of its summer rut last year. While the veteran skipper certainly deserved some blame for the team’s disappointing 2026, this season has shown fans that maybe Melvin wasn’t the root of the problem.

Vitello's struggles reflect deeper issues with Giants

Melvin's replacement, rookie manager Tony Vitello, has had a rough introduction to the big leagues. He’s leading a team that is 42-60 on the year and is most likely about to sell off some key players at the trade deadline.

Vitello certainly does not deserve all of the blame for that. The team’s roster was clearly lacking on the pitching side coming into this year and that falls on ownership and the front office.

Still, Vitello has been far from perfect as manager. That’s to be expected from a guy coming straight from the college ranks. There were always going to be bumps in the road and a pretty steep learning curve and we’re all seeing that play out. 

He’s been very deferential to the veterans on the team which makes sense. He probably doesn’t feel he has the ability to come in and tell guys who have been in the big leagues for years what to do even if that may have been what was necessary at times.

Melvin, for all his faults, was a guy who commanded respect in a clubhouse because of his resume. He’d been around the block and that alone kept guys in line. 

But we’ve seen the sloppiness this year. The mental errors, doing all the small things wrong. Melvin wasn’t running a well-oiled machine but it didn't feel this disorderly when he was the manager.

This isn’t to say the Giants would be .500 this year if Melvin was in charge. Even if Bruce Bochy had come back to manage it’s very likely this team would be underwater. Heck, even the ghost of John McGraw wouldn’t have been able to get much out of this club.

Melvin was the fall guy last year which probably wasn’t fair the same way that Gabe Kapler was the fall guy in 2023. These issues run deeper than the manager and even though Vitello is unlikely to be ousted after this season, some deeper changes need to happen because it’s clear that things are not working in San Francisco.

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