The San Francisco Giants are prepared to do something no MLB team has before, according to the latest reports.
After multiple days of rumors and speculation, the Giants are finalizing an agreement with University of Tennessee head coach Tony Vitello to be their new manager. ESPN’s Pete Thamel broke the news.
Vitello, 47, will be the first-ever manager to make the leap from college to an MLB dugout with no professional coaching experience on his resume.
There have been managers hired with no professional training before–think the Yankees’ Aaron Boone–but none who have only coached in college like Vitello.
With the Giants, he’ll be replacing Bob Melvin, who went 161-163 in two seasons in San Francisco. After winning three World Series from 2010-14, the Giants have made the playoffs only twice in the last 11 seasons, in 2016 and 2021.
Vitello short on experience, not on merits
In terms of collegiate accomplishments, Vitello has plenty. An infielder at the University of Missouri in the early 2000s, he was an assistant at his alma mater from 2003-10 before moving on to coaching staffs at TCU (2011-13) and Arkansas (2014-17).
Tennessee hired Vitello in June 2017, and in eight seasons, including the COVID-shortened 2020 campaign, he went 341-131 with six trips to the NCAA Tournament, three College World Series appearances, two SEC regular season titles and two SEC Tournament titles.
Vitello’s crowning achievement came in 2024, when he led the Vols to a 60-13 season and the first national championship in program history. He followed that up with a 46-19 mark and NCAA Super Regional appearance in 2025.
“Vitello’s charisma, relentlessness and player-first intensity have long belonged to a higher tier,” writes Baseball America’s Jacob Rudner. “He built Tennessee like a pro franchise, recruited like a front office with ample financial backing and coached like he was sure college baseball was merely the sport’s next great developmental frontier.
“And maybe that’s exactly what it is. In an era when college players reach the majors faster than ever and with the draft possibly shrinking again in 2027, the distance between the SEC and the show has never been smaller. Someone was bound to cross it. It’s fitting that the one to do it is the coach who blurred that line more than anyone else.”
