Tony Vitello nearing the jump to the Major Leagues
Tennessee University baseball coach Tony Vitello is emerging as the leading candidate for the San Francisco Giants manager position. A resolution on a possible agreement is expected within the next 24 to 72 hours. If the parties reach an agreement, Vitello would become the first manager in Major League history to go directly from a college program to the major leagues without experience in a professional organization. Vitello, 47, led Tennessee to win the College World Series title in 2024 and is considered one of the best college baseball coaches. He would replace Bob Melvin, who was fired on September 29 after an 81-81 season, the Giants’ fourth consecutive season without a playoff berth. San Francisco’s president of baseball operations, Buster Posey, has considered several candidates for manager, including former Giants catcher Nick Hundley and two other former Major League catchers, Kurt Suzuki and Vance Wilson. However, the Giants have focused their interest on Vitello, who has distinguished himself as one of the country’s most outstanding recruiters and talent developers during a two-decade career as an assistant and head coach in college. The termination clause of his contract with Tennessee is $3 million, the same as his annual salary. The transition from college baseball to the professional level is rare, though not unprecedented. Milwaukee Brewers manager Pat Murphy spent 25 years coaching in college before joining the San Diego Padres, with whom he managed in the minor leagues. Murphy then spent eight years as the Brewers’ bench coach before taking over as manager in 2024, when he was named National League Manager of the Year. Vitello’s transition to the major leagues would occur at a much faster pace. He would inherit a Giants team competing in a very competitive National League West, with the division-winning Los Angeles Dodgers securing a spot in the World Series on Friday night. San Francisco, which boasts a core made up of first baseman Rafael Devers, shortstop Willy Adames, and third baseman Matt Chapman, is expected to be active in free agency this winter. After more than 10 years as an assistant coach at Missouri, TCU, and Arkansas, Vitello took over a struggling Tennessee program before the 2018 season and recorded a 341-131 record, advancing to the College World Series in 2021, 2023, and 2024. With a couple of first-round and four second-round picks, Tennessee defeated Texas A&M to win the school’s first national baseball championship in 2024. Vitello, whose boisterous personality endeared him to Tennessee and annoyed other SEC schools, would enter a different realm in MLB. While college positions are often defined by the success of recruiting classes, Major League teams are built by baseball operations departments, and the manager is relied upon for locker room cohesion, in-game decision-making, bullpen usage, and daily interactions with the media. The reluctance of MLB teams to delve into the college ranks to hire managers has been established for a long time and has gone against the hiring practices of other professional sports leagues. NFL teams have regularly pulled head coaches from the college ranks, and in the NBA there is no stigma associated with college coaches. The closest hiring to Vitello’s was in 2019, when pitching coach Wes Johnson left the University of Arkansas to take the same position with the Minnesota Twins. Johnson left the Twins in 2022 to accept the pitching coach position at LSU before joining Georgia as head coach a year later. Vitello’s philosophies on the game and his personality intrigued Posey and aligned with what the future Hall of Famer hopes to build in San Francisco. In an interview in June, Vitello said that his reputation as a troublemaker did not bother him and that he had no plans to change his approach to training, which demanded pushing boundaries.I think you don’t know where the line is until you cross it. And then you make an adjustment. I don’t want our guys, if they’re given a coloring book, I don’t want them to just color inside the lines. You know, invent something different.
Tony Vitello
