Rubik’s Cube

BY KEVIN KERNAN

Say this for Buster Posey and the San Francisco Giants: outside the box thinking is a fascinating way to go. And I’m here for it.

Just maybe, outside the box is what baseball needs because in too many cases baseball is being played for metrics and not winning. Maybe that is behind the hiring of Tony Vitello Wednesday as the 40th manager in the history of the Giants.

Winning matters.

Tony Vitello wins. Check out his record at Tennessee. Tony Vitello is the son of a coach. Tony Vitello believes in the bedrock of baseball fundamentals and teaching the game, developing players.

All that doesn’t sound outside the box to me. That sounds inside the box.

What is outside the box is that Tony Vitello has no history of playing professional baseball or coaching or managing on any level of pro baseball.

What’s wrong with going outside the box if you are trying to build a better baseball team? I did not want to see yet another manager who failed somewhere else become the Giants manager. Tony Vitello, 47, has won a lot of games for Tennessee. I don’t want to see another ex-player who has no managing experience plucked from the ranks, someone like, say, Aaron Boone, and be handed one of the best managerial jobs on the planet in the Yankees.

Players are making more fundamental mistakes now than ever and as one top talent evaluator told me on Wednesday, if you look at development as a pie chart, 90 percent of the pie used to be devoted to physical on-field work. He now says that about only 10 percent of that time is spent on the field working. And you wonder why fundamentals are lacking.

Do some base-running, fellas.

Being a good teammate is important to both men, and I think that is something that has gotten loss in the sauce in today’s analytical driven baseball world.

If you make everything about velocity and spin – and everything else Nerdy under the sun – winning becomes secondary.

The Blue Jays play with passion, play for each other and are pretty good at the fundamentals, and that is what carried them to the World Series against the mighty Dodgers come Friday at the Rogers Centre.

I wanted to get to know more about Vitello, all I know from watching Tennessee is that he is brash and opposing teams really do not like Tennessee. That’s not necessarily a terrible thing. To learn more, I listened to a podcast Vitello did this week with Greg Olsen – yes, that Greg Olsen – football Greg Olsen. The podcast is called Youth Inc.

Olsen is the son of a coach, and I know that because he’s a Jersey guy and his father is a legendary high school coach. Vitello is also the son of a legendary coach out of De Smet Jesuit High in Crete Coeur, Missouri, so they bonded immediately.

Being a good teammate is important to both men, and I think that is something that has gotten loss in the sauce in today’s analytical driven baseball world.

Olsen coaches a seventh-grade travel baseball team in Charlotte and is a football guy, so he readily admitted to Vitello that he is learning baseball.

“Baseball, on the whole, it could be big leagues or the level you are talking about,’’ Vitello said, beginning his breakdown, “there is a lot of downtime in baseball, so personality shouldn’t just be encouraged, it’s kind of a requirement. There are only 25 minutes of actual action, but the game can last three hours so that time in the dugout, the time in pre-game, spitting seeds, the conversations that take place post-game, those are so crucial. That is just as much a part of it as hitting with the bases loaded. Everybody should be very comfortable in their own skin.’’

To Vitello’s point, you could see watching the Blue Jays, that they are playing for one another. That is a key component to building a winning team. The Giants have not been a winning team. Over each of the last four seasons they have not finished over .500 under Gabe Kapler and Bob Melvin.

So, I like what Vitello is saying.

Earlier in the day I was talking to another top talent evaluator, and he specifically pointed to the 1993 Phillies as a team with the good personalities and amazingly, Vitello went to the exact same spot, saying, “That Philadelphia Phillies team with Darren Daulton, John Kruk, Lenny Dykstra, no coincidence that they were winning. They had a lot of guys that had ability and confidence that came with it, but holy cow the personalities that came with it.’’

So, a lifetime pro baseball man and Vitello, the college guy with a big personality, pointed to the exact same team. It was refreshing to hear and not the same old analytics mumble jumble that so many major league puppet managers spit out. Vitello went on to talk about other winning teams like Kevin Millar and the 2004 Red Sox, and I was there for all that. Millar, I came to know well early in his career. Turns out he was a huge Thurman Munson fan and that is why he wore No. 15.

Vitello also highlighted the 2016 Cubs that broke the Billy Goat Curse and gave much credit to one of my favorite managers Joe Maddon.

“That Cubs team finally getting over the hump was a bunch of guys saying, ‘Hey, love it or hate it, we’re the Cubs and we are riding history this particular year’ – and Joe Maddon I think really unlocked the ability for a lot of those guys to be true to who they are as individuals,’’ praised Vitello.

All this is encouraging because there was no maddening talk about spin rate, velocity, exit velo and all the other analytical rabbit holes.

Tony Vitello was talking baseball to Greg Olsen. The new man(ager) on the block has some old school ways about him.

Vitello explained his approach to development.

“Development is fading a little bit, and I don’t think it is all the coaches’ fault, it is kind of the environment,’’ Vitello said. He noted that some super talented players may not know the game that well because “it’s showcase, showcase, showcase. There is no seasoning, no synergy, it is just bouncing around.’’

He pointed to current Giant and ex-Met outfielder Drew Gilbert, who starred at Tennessee. “The world is kind of finding out who he is, and I went to see him play, just to see him in a big-league uniform and was able to speak to a GM and we both talked.

“I think everyone is suffering the consequences, all the way up to the big leagues where guys are super skilled but there is less development, less coaching, less accountability and therefore, less understanding of how to actually play the game to win.’’

Obviously, the GM Vitello talked to was Buster Posey. And that comment got the ball rolling in Posey’s baseball mind, hey, let’s think outside the box here. Tony Vitello and Buster Posey are on the same baseball wavelength.

Also sounds like Vitello might be reading BallNine like so many other baseball people. Posey came from a big-time college background at Florida State, so he clearly understands Vitello’s Tennessee’s baseball world. Watch any game and you see the lack of fundamentals. The Yankees continuously fall apart on the fundamental level. The 2025 Phillies fell apart fundamentally against the Dodgers and could not do a simple PFP drill – and that is how that NLDS series ended.

Posey watched his own Giants self-destruct fundamentally while the Deferral Dodgers keep getting better. For the Giants, it is imperative that they become a fundamentally sound organization, especially playing in that big ballpark, Oracle Park.

Yes, Vitello has never coached or managed in the pros, but he speaks the same baseball language as Buster Posey, and it will be fascinating to see how the Giants develop. Scottsdale will be a must stop next spring training as baseball tries to get back to its roots and out from under the yoke of analytics.

I love that Vitello said there is less understanding of how to play the game to win. With so much individual aspects of the game being highlighted, just watch hitters run to the iPad after an at-bat, there is less thought of T-E-A-M and what it takes to win. It is not always about putting your “A’’ swing on the ball, sometimes it is about making contact, and Vitello will try to bring that world to the Giants.

Some quick numbers: the Mariners hit .222, the Blue Jays hit .271 in the ALCS. The Mariners struck out 71 times, the Blue Jays struck out 40 times. The Mariners won the home run battle 14 to 11 but not the series – as the Blue Jays produced 15 more hits than the Mariners.

Over in the NLCS it was much the same, and yes, there was a great discrepancy in payroll, but the Brewers hit .118 while the Dodgers hit .250. The Dodgers had the power advantage too because of Superman Shohei Ohtani, out-homering the Brewers, 6-1. One other point, in the ALDS, the Blue Jays hit .338 to the Yankees’ .250.

It will be fascinating to see if Tony Vitello can make the Giants a force again in the NL West. He pointed to a pitcher he once coached, a guy named Max Scherzer, who is heading to the World Series again with the Blue Jays. This was at Missouri when Vitello was pitching coach.

“Max will get mad at me because he always thinks he was the best, but in high school he was not but he became that,’’ Vitello told Olsen. “In college, freshman year, he only got 20 innings for us, but he became so dominant and the best prospect … the word that comes to mind is evolving. In every sport it is probably crucial, but I think more so in baseball because there are so many moving parts … continuing to evolve in baseball is so important.’’

He then compared baseball to a Rubik’s Cube.

“You are always evolving, trying to line up those panels on the same side,’’ he said, “unfortunately for sports like golf or baseball, you are never going to have them all lined up. But I think that kind of puzzle solving contributes to that evolution.’’

Can Tony Vitello solve the Giants Rubik’s Cube?