Buster Posey makes his riskiest move yet hiring Tony Vitello as SF Giants manager

After lots of rumors and reports that Tony Vitello was the top choice for the SF Giants manager job, it finally became official as Vitello was announced as the next manager of the team which is Buster Posey's biggest risk yet.

The definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result. Well, for years San Francisco Giants fans have been feeling insane, and the Giants have had the same mediocre result. It’s now safe to say that in his second offseason as president of baseball operations, Buster Posey is not insane.

With the hiring of Tony Vitello, Posey is doing something that has literally never been done before in the history of Major League Baseball: plucking a college head coach and depositing him right onto the top step of a Major League dugout.

Buster Posey is taking a big risk by making Tony Vitello SF Giants manager

Risky? Yes. Insane? Most definitely not. Posey has proven already that he is no subscriber to the notion that things should be done simply because they’ve always been done that way. He has exhibited an incredible blending of his old school demeanor, an innovative mind, and bold decision making.

Professional sports seems to be the only avenue of employment where you can be fired repeatedly and still find a new job at the same level. Vitello’s hiring shows that the Giants, or at least Posey himself, are tired of the cycle.

Anything new involves risk. However, if Giants fandom over all of social media for the past season is to be believed, everyone has wanted to see more risk from this ballclub: more aggressiveness on the bases (both in stealing and rounding third), more aggressiveness at the plate, more emotion in the dugout (thanks to Tennessee alum Drew Gilbert for at least starting to change that).

What are aggressiveness and emotion but other words for risk? Tony Vitello embodies the very traits that the Giants have been begging for since the World Series years, and as a veteran of those World Series teams, Posey has assumed the risk of setting a new hiring precedent.

Risk always seems to bring up the negative questions in the sports world. What if he doesn’t transition well from managing college kids to Major League veterans? What if he is just another frustrating version of Gabe Kapler? What if he is all emotion and charisma but no substance?

However, with risk there is always the flip side of the story. The great biographies we hear about all the time of those who risk it all and come out on top. What if he wins 108 games? What if he’s finally the one to topple the Dodgers? What if he is the key to finally drawing the top free agents over the next few years? What if the Giants have a new dynasty at the end of the 2020’s as they did at the beginning of the 2010’s? What if Buster Posey, by bucking insanity, has set the San Francisco Giants on their winningest trajectory in their history?

Even if he hasn’t nailed his new hire, Posey has tried something new in hitching Giants fandom’s hopes to Tony Vitello for the foreseeable future. And trying something new is all we’ve been clamoring for.