The San Francisco Giants are preparing to announce that University of Tennessee coach Tony Vitlow has been hired as the 40th head coach in franchise history, sources said. Competitor.
He is different from all 39 of his predecessors.
Vitello, 47, has made an almost unprecedented jump from college campus to major league dugout. He had no experience as a professional player and transitioned directly into coaching after playing at the University of Missouri. He must adapt to new challenges, dealing with a 162-game MLB schedule, appeasing the egos of millionaire players and managing a roster that is not his own.
But his charisma and high-spirited drive resonate with Giants president of baseball operations Buster Posey, who is not far removed from his own standout days in Florida State baseball, and his legendary confidence continues to be on full display less than a year into his tenure as an executive. When the early front-runner for the position, Nick Hendry, withdrew from consideration due to family reasons, Posey wasted no time in turning to his least traditional candidate, Vitello. The financial component of Vitlow is uncertain given his $3 million annual salary at Tennessee, plus a $3 million buyout, and his rock star status in Knoxville while leading a program that advanced to the College World Series in three of the past five seasons.
However, when Percy identifies the person he wants, he tends to draw a straight line between A and B.
Vitello will face a steep learning curve, but he also brings a wealth of knowledge about player development, particularly on the pitching side, while graduating 10 first-round draft picks in eight seasons in Knoxville, including Boston Red Sox left-hander and Cy Young Award candidate Garrett Crochet and flaming Los Angeles Angels reliever Ben Joyce. Among the Vols' four first-round picks in the 2025 draft were infielder Gavin Kilen, whom the Giants selected with the 13th overall pick. The Giants also have former Vols shortstop Maui Ahuna representing them in the Arizona Fall League; they acquired two more former Tennessee standouts, outfielder Drew Gilbert and right-hander Brad Tidwell, in a late-July trade that sent reliever Tyler Rogers to the New York Mets.
Gilbert was one of Vitello's favorite players at Tennessee and is credited with transforming the program's culture into a team with high spirits and style. Gilbert had a similar impact on the Giants last season after making his major league debut in August, electrifying their clubhouse and dugout with his offbeat energy. It will be interesting to see how much Gilbert's impact on the Giants' clubhouse piqued Posey's curiosity in pursuing Vitello as a candidate.
Notably, Posey made an unscheduled trip to Coors Field for the Giants' series in September, where Vitlow happened to visit with four of his former players. Vitello confirmed in a Youth.inc podcast released on Tuesday that he spoke with “a general manager” during that visit, and during their conversation they expressed regret about the current state of the game.
“I think everyone is suffering from this, all the way up to the major leagues, where players have super skills, but they have less development, less coaching, less accountability and therefore less understanding of how to actually win games,” Vitello told Youth.inc. “And it starts to have a trickle-down effect all the way through.”
Posey has made similar comments several times since taking over as the Giants' top baseball official 12 months ago, praising the value of players who develop athleticism as well as physical skills such as bat speed and spin rate.
Vitello recruited and helped develop more than a dozen major league players while serving as an assistant at Missouri, Texas Christian and Arkansas, plus he turned around an otherwise lackluster program in eight seasons at Tennessee. None of his former students are more accomplished than Max Scherzer, a three-time Cy Young Award winner and future Hall of Famer who helped the Toronto Blue Jays reach the World Series last week.
Scherzer was asked last week CompetitorKen Rosenthal, speaking about Vitello's prospects as a major league head coaching candidate, said he believes the idea isn't crazy.
“It's competitiveness. It's firepower. It's intensity,” Scherzer said. “It's the communication skill. He made everything so relatable. He was such a player. He made you want to break through brick walls for him. He was perfect for me when I was in college. He even helped develop my mentality and complement it and really helped me bring it out. Missouri was the first time I really took off and his fingerprints are all over it. So I definitely believed in him. To this day, he's one of my closest friends and I definitely believed he was going to get it done at the major league level.
“He's going to get the players on board. I know there's going to be a narrative that he doesn't have any experience in professional football. But his ability to connect with the players and his enthusiasm and passion for the game will resonate with everyone in the club. So I don't think that's a problem.”
Vitello leads the Vols in an intrasquad scrimmage open to the public at Lindsay Nelson Stadium on Tuesday. Fans chanted his name and hung banners imploring him to stay. Vitello tossed the autographed baseball into the stands. At one point before the scrimmage, Vitello was seen repeatedly wiping his eyes with his sleeve after emerging from what appeared to be a team meeting.
Over the past few days, some Tennessee fans were so eager to keep him that they created fake Giants fan accounts and flooded social media with negative comments about the potential hire. Athletic director Danny White is expected to hold a press conference later this afternoon to discuss Vitello's departure and the Volunteers' next steps, according to sources.
“You see how much he loves Tennessee, you almost think he's going to spend the rest of his career there,” Joyce said in a phone interview. “I wouldn't be that shocked if I saw him sign a lifetime contract with Tennessee just because people in Knoxville love him. He took Tennessee from last place in the SEC to one of the best programs in the country in two or three years, so that's a pretty record pace to do something like this. I know how hard he works, so when I heard he was in talks with major league managers, I wasn't surprised at all.”
While Vitello isn't the first major league head coach to make the jump from a college head coaching job, there's no real precedent for his hiring. When the New York Yankees hired Florida State coach Dick Howser in 1980, Howser had already been on campus for one season, having spent eight seasons as a major league player and 10 seasons on the Yankees' coaching staff. Winkles spent one season on the California Angels' coaching staff before they hired Arizona State coach Bobby Winkles in 1973.
There has been more movement in both directions between Division I and the major leagues in recent years, a change that may have something to do with the shrinking of the minor leagues and the advancement of cutting-edge player development at the college level. The Detroit Tigers hired pitching coach Chris Fetter in 2020, a direct graduate of the University of Michigan; former Minnesota Twins pitching coach Wes Johnson came from the University of Arkansas and returned to Division I when LSU offered him more money than he would have made in the majors.
Former major leaguer and University of Arizona coach Chip Hale, who coached the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2020-21, said he was surprised Vitello became a major league candidate but was optimistic about his ability to make a successful transition.
“When I think about the best managers, the biggest concern is relationships and how to deal with people,” Hale said. “I saw it in Tony's recruiting process: incredible with people, incredible with family, very good at the relationship part of it. For every front office or owner that selects a manager, they have to be a great leader. That's what Pat Murphy does so well. He gets these guys to perform at a high level.”
Murphy, the only head coach to serve as a Division I head coach in Major League Baseball last season, is likely to win his second consecutive National League Coach of the Year award after leading the Milwaukee Brewers to the National League's best record. Murphy energized the Brewers with his approachable charm and palpable college intensity. He also spent more than a decade in professional baseball, including eight seasons as the Brewers' bench coach following careers at Notre Dame and Arizona State. If teams around the league are looking to emulate the Brewers' fundamentally sound style, hiring a manager in the Murphy mold seems to be part of the appeal.
Even though Vitello doesn't have Murphy's pro baseball experience, by appointing him to manage the Giants, Posey is betting on his personality while looking for a leader who can continue player development at the major league level — while managing an ambitious team with big-money players like Rafael Devers, Matt Chapman and Willie Adams who are now being paid to win.
“I know his work ethic will really show up wherever he goes,” Joyce said. “He's one of those guys that if he sets his mind to something, he's going to do it. If he gets to the major league level, I think he's going to be great. From a mental positivity and hard work standpoint, I think that's going to translate to the real level that he's at.”
Speaking Tuesday on the New York Post Sports Podcast with Joel Sherman and Jon Heyman, Murphy said he didn't feel ready when he was promoted to interim head coach of the San Diego Padres in 2015. But Murphy also said he respects Posey too much to doubt Vitello's success.
“He understands that going from college to the major leagues is a huge transition for a guy who's never been in a major league dugout,” Murphy said of Posey. “They're not stupid. They know what they're getting into. They see something in this guy that will help lead the club – a way of saying unabashedly 'this is what we're going to do', or a personality that can deal with the media, a personality that can deal with different types of players.
“Everybody says, 'How does this work? You can't go from harness racing to Thoroughbred racing.' Oh, yes, you can, if you know what you're going to face and the horse can run. I think that's a great thing for the game. … Giants are not stupid. They're not throwing darts at the board. They've done the research and believe this guy can do it. So I'd say he can do it.”
Competitor He was the first to mention Vitello as a potential candidate and the first to report that the Giants offered him the position on September 28, the day before the team fired Bob Melvin.
— Sportsman’s Sam Blum contributed to this report.