The San Francisco Giants hired former Tennessee baseball coach Tony Vitello as their new manager.
Vitello is the first sitting college baseball coach with no professional experience to be hired to manage an MLB team.
Giants’ president of baseball operations Buster Posey chose Vitello for his culture-building and leadership skills.
The Giants are betting that Vitello’s success in rebuilding Tennessee’s program will translate to the major leagues.
SAN FRANCISCO − Buster Posey’s big move started with small moments.
An amateur scout praising Tony Vitello and the Tennessee baseball program. Chatter in the San Francisco Giants’ draft room about the talent stockpile in Knoxville. A chance encounter in a side stairwell at Denver’s Coors Field in September.
Those little benchmarks were enough for the Giants’ president of baseball operations to text Vitello asking to set up a visit in the earliest days of his hunt for a new manager.
“I kind of said, ‘Oh hell here we go, this could be something,’ ” Vitello said on Thursday, Oct. 30.
That is precisely what Posey is betting on.
Giants take a chance, move past normal with new manager
Posey slipped a cream Giants jersey over Vitello’s shoulders at Oracle Park, the pair as linked as the intertwined S and F on the black hat Vitello donned at the cost of his hair. Posey is the first man to choose a sitting college baseball coach with zero professional experience to lead an MLB franchise. Vitello is the coach who proved himself worthy of the opportunity.
“It goes back to Buster being pretty fearless and someone who is willing to take chances,” Giants general manager Zack Minasian said.
It’s a chance, but only inasmuch as Posey is hiring Vitello to fit into the traditional box that an MLB manager has long been held by. Nothing about Vitello suggests he is content to hand in a lineup card, make a handful of pitching decisions per game and maintain order. He’s more likely to dive into McCovey Cove than be contained by conventional expectations.
The normal is not why the Giants chose him.
They’re banking on him being successful as an MLB manager for the attributes that led him to rebuild a decrepit Tennessee program into a powerhouse and national champion. He’s a culture-builder, a leader, a teacher, a vision-holder, a fiery competitor and — perhaps most importantly — a winner who thrives at creating trust-centered relationships.
Those traits put him on the MLB radar two years ago when a team explored hiring him, which is when Vitello embraced the dream of leading a pro franchise. It was different this time.
Vitello was firmly on the Giants’ list at the start of their search to replace Bob Melvin, who was fired on Sept. 29 after going 161-163 in two seasons. His name kept standing out.
“As we started to go through it, I felt like we kept coming back to, ‘This one would be really interesting’ and it just got even more and more interesting as we continued to speak,” Minasian said.
Posey was affirmed at every turn in his pursuit of Vitello.
Giants see the right traits in Vitello
The former Vols coach was annoyingly hard to get in touch with because he was working so hard at Tennessee. He made enough phone calls to get glimpses of Vitello. He had Vitello call former Giants managers Dusty Baker and Bruce Bochy — the latter of whom won a World Series title with the Giants. Both were impressed.
Posey sees Vitello as someone who can change a clubhouse in time. There’s hope his dedication to teaching the game will infiltrate the organization.
‘When you start lining them up, there are some (traits) that draw strong comparisons to people who have been really successful in the role right out here,” said Minasian as he pointed to the dugout.
Vitello answered a long list of expected questions in his introduction, ranging from how he will handle the length of an MLB season compared to a college season to how MLB players will respond to a feather-ruffling college coach who hasn’t paid the typical dues to earn such a role.
He’s not worried about whether he fits into the picture of an MLB manager. He does wonder how it will feel. He did so at the two World Series games he attended since accepting the job.
He’ll find out soon enough.
“We are in this together, whether you like me or not,” Vitello said.
Vitello was speaking to fans when he said that. He might as well have turned to his right and uttered it to Posey, who didn’t go into a search looking to make history. He did it anyway — and if Vitello succeeds, the Giants might have blown up the MLB manager role as it has been for decades with Buster’s big move.
Mike Wilson covers University of Tennessee athletics. Email him at michael.wilson@knoxnews.com and follow him on X @ByMikeWilson. If you enjoy Mike’s coverage, consider a digital subscription that will allow you access to all of it.
This story has been updated to reflect Bruce Bochy and not Dusty Baker won a World Series with the Giants.
