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The odd-couple body language and actual language was enough to start a thousand clever advertising campaigns and maybe even win a lot of games.

Tony Vitello spoke philosophically, made jokes, fiddled with his hair and new Giants cap, gamely answered every question at his introductory news conference as manager, and sounded at times more like a funny, feisty, foot-on-the-pedal football coach than somebody who’ll lead this franchise through 162 games a season.

“I asked before even taking the job, I don’t have to get a Twitter, right?” Vitello said on one high-quality digression Thursday. “They said no. I realize it’s a part of the job. There’s great information. There’s great entertainment. But one thing that I think is very beneficial to people is to know that Twitter is not life.”

Next to him on the podium, Buster Posey was calm, direct, and slightly less verbose — but chuckled a few times at Vitello’s one-liners (and loved the Twitter bit) and seemed enormously pleased with this moment.

Did Posey just hire his motor-mouth complete opposite maybe to balance out the Giants’ leadership biorhythms going into 2026? No, not really.

If you know Posey well enough, you know that he’s edgier than he lets on in public. In just over a year as the Giants’ chief decision-maker, he’s shown that he’s not at all afraid to take major risks and that .500 baseball will lead to firings.

The real context is that the chemistry between Posey and Vitello — in discussions leading up to this bold hiring, in the days it took for Vitello to finally take the job, and in everything both men said and did Thursday — is more than strong. It’s the defining point of this new tandem.

They’re both high-leverage competitors. They’re both extremely ambitious. They both don’t care too much about being pals with their opponents. They’ve figured this out about each other, and now they’ll see if they can get the Giants moving back toward a championship.

“That was part of the appeal to me as well, when I was thinking about Tony is … he’s going to be OK with ruffling feathers,” Posey said after the presser. “I don’t think he’s going to go out and do this just to get under their skin. [But] if it’s something that happens organically because of certain circumstances? That’s sports. It’s entertainment. For me, there’s an argument to be made that we’re lacking that severely right now.”

Posey would not say it this way, but he clearly wanted a manager with more verve and feistiness than he could project coming from Bob Melvin going into 2026, which is why Melvin was dismissed, even with money owed for next season.

And though Vitello is coming to the Giants with zero previous MLB experience as a player, coach, or manager, his high-intensity tenure running the Tennessee program was a model for what Posey wants.

Play hard. Win. Make your opponents unhappy. And keep doing it. The Giants aren’t going to chase down the Dodgers by being best friends with Shohei Ohtani and Blake Snell.

“I mean, all the young players will not like me, but I don’t like guys hugging before the game, you know?” Posey said. “I don’t like it. As a fan, I want there to be a little bit of friction at times.

“You guys are probably laughing. You know me pretty well. I wasn’t necessarily going to be a guy that was going to cause friction. But I can promise you, you can ask guys who went to the plate, I wasn’t being friendly with them when they came to the plate.

“So there’s an edge to be had with that type of mentality, and I think it’s something that [Vitello will] bring.”

Now, of course, this hiring was not just about irritating the Dodgers, Padres, or whomever else. It was about finding the right man to energize and maximize what Posey and the rest of the Giants’ front office believes is a fairly talented roster and can become much better with a few key additions this offseason.

But if the right guy also happens to really bug the Giants’ rivals? And maybe help attract a landmark free agent after years of big misses? All the better.

And better for the budding Posey-Vitello comedy tour.

“It will be interesting, because one thing I picked up on, he loves to recruit,” Posey said. “That was something he really enjoyed. He was asking me the other day if there was any recruiting in free agency. I said, yeah, there can be some, and kinda listed some of the players that I was part of the recruitment.

“And I was like, but you’re clearly going to have to take my spot, because I’m not hitting the recruiting nail.”

Again, this hire isn’t just about personality. And if Vitello doesn’t get the Giants into the playoffs soon, nothing else will matter.

But to that point, Posey brought in Bruce Bochy and Dusty Baker as his truest, time-tested counselors, and the Giants’ grand masters gave a double thumbs-up.

Meanwhile, Giants chairman Greg Johnson had a different response when he heard about the thought of hiring somebody straight out of college ball.

“My first reaction was, I thought we would get a good bargain,” Johnson said with a smile. “Then I looked it up and said, ‘Wait a minute!’”

NCAA-winning SEC baseball coaches, it should be noted, get paid nicely, and it took a three-year contract worth $10.5 million plus paying the $3 million buyout on his University of Tennessee contract to get Vitello to sign with the Giants. That’s not very high in MLB terms, but it’s not nothing.

But Johnson said he knew this was the kind of manager Posey wanted — whatever the résumé said.

“I wasn’t surprised, because I know exactly what he believes would be the biggest lift for the team is getting somebody that has leadership skills,” Johnson said. “I think we’ve had managers throughout history that have had leadership skills, but a different type.

“I think he wanted somebody that really has a high level of intensity and energy. And I think more importantly the push of accountability for what everybody’s doing. At the major-league level, sometimes that gets lost a little bit.”

But there’s no escaping the risk of this hire. Nobody knows if Vitello can run a spring training camp or if he’ll burn out himself or burn out the clubhouse after 60 games. If he’ll know how to handle a major-league pitching staff and deal with grown men making millions. If he can really lift a staggering club in July and make sure August and September are meaningful.

However, this uncertain situation also provided allure. What if you could do something almost everybody else considered but was too afraid to do? What if the risk were actually part of the best reason to do this?

And obviously, Posey’s massive credibility with the rest of Giants ownership and the fan base gives him a lot more freedom to do something wild.

So why not?

“I think I look at it a little bit differently, just because, as I’ve mentioned, felt really comfortable about the person,” Posey said. “A lot of people that I trust felt comfortable about the person. So I probably don’t see it as much risk.

“Now I will say that if this for some reason doesn’t work, then people will look back and say, well, that was a dumb decision and it was too much risk … to take, and I’m fully aware of that. But obviously I don’t think that, or we wouldn’t be standing here.”

During the presser, Posey made a point to say that it was hard to get hold of Vitello through this process because he was recruiting and running practices even while the Giants were trying to make him an MLB manager.

Afterward, I asked: Were you almost more drawn to Vitello because he wasn’t begging for this job? Because you had to chase him?

“I think what it told me is just how absolutely committed he was to the University of Tennessee,” Posey said. “And I can’t say this, because I’m not in his mind, but I’ve heard him mention a couple of times it was almost like a divorce having to leave Tennessee, because of the relationships that he’s built there. He’s never been married or divorced, so I’m not sure how he actually puts those two together, but I understand the analogy.

“So did it impress me that we were having to work harder? I don’t know if ‘impressed’ is the right word, but certainly came away from that having the sense that when this guy goes after something, he’s going to go at it full bore.”

Yes, this is already a fascinating executive/manager relationship. Let’s flash back to the start of the big presser, when Posey said he was especially impressed by Vitello’s vision and conciseness.

I asked Posey: Concise? Vitello? Really?

“I think ‘concise’ comes from my conversations with him over the last few weeks,” Posey said. “He’s very direct in his thoughts. And there’s not a lot of hemming and hawing. He has what he believes.

“Now, that can be misconstrued to say that he’s not going to be malleable — certainly is not how I felt throughout this, either. But I think it’s a huge attribute to be able to take in information and once you get that information, make a decision and stick with it. You should be able to back up why you were concise in this situation.”

Sound like a situation somebody on that podium faced a few weeks ago? Maybe somebody ferociously competitive, absolutely committed to getting the Giants back to the top, and desperately seeking a baseball soulmate?

No, Posey and Vitello aren’t polar opposites. They’re the same in so many ways that this hiring was a great risk that Posey had to make himself take.