{"id":326218,"date":"2025-10-23T10:18:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T10:18:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/326218\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T10:18:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T10:18:12","slug":"giants-hire-tony-vitello-as-manager","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/326218\/","title":{"rendered":"Giants Hire Tony Vitello As Manager"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Giants finalized their bold managerial move on Wednesday. San Francisco announced that they\u2019ve hired University of Tennessee head coach Tony Vitello as the 40th manager in franchise history. He reportedly signed a three-year contract that pays $3.5MM annually with a vesting option for 2029.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re thrilled to welcome Tony to the Giants family,\u201d president of baseball operations Buster Posey said in the press release. \u201cTony is one of the brightest, most innovative, and most respected coaches in college baseball today. \u2026 We look forward to the energy and direction he will bring, along with the memories to be made as we focus on the future of Giants baseball.\u201d<\/p>\n

In recent years, several MLB teams have looking to hire coaches from the collegiate ranks or from other backgrounds with little or no pro experience, and some past or current managers have gotten their jobs with little to no coaching or managerial experience.\u00a0 However, Vitello is a unique case of a lifelong collegiate coach who is moving to professional baseball with no past history as a player, coach, or manager in either Major League or minor league ball.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t to say that Vitello doesn\u2019t have a decorated resume, as the 47-year-old is one of the most successful NCAA coaches of the last decade.\u00a0 Since Vitello was hired by Tennessee in June 2017, the program won its first national baseball title in 2024, and made two more trips to the College World Series in both 2021 and 2023.\u00a0 The Volunteers also won the SEC regular-season and tournament crowns during the 2022 and 2024 seasons.\u00a0 Before coming to Tennessee, Vitello was an assistant baseball coach at Missouri, TCU, and Arkansas from 2003-2017.<\/p>\n

\"\"Several of Vitello\u2019s former players (including Missouri\u2019s Max Scherzer<\/a><\/strong>) have reached the major leagues, and 10 Tennessee players have gone on to be first-round draft picks since Vitello took over the program.\u00a0 The Giants have four ex-Tennessee players\u00a0 \u2014 Drew Gilbert<\/a><\/strong>, Blade Tidwell<\/a><\/strong>, Maui Ahuna<\/a><\/strong>, and 2025 first-rounder Gavin Kilen<\/a><\/strong> \u2014 in their organization, which undoubtedly helped forge a connection between Vitello and Posey.<\/p>\n

Vitello is Posey\u2019s first managerial hire since taking over the PBO role a year ago, as Bob Melvin was a holdover from the Farhan Zaidi\u2019s time in charge of San Francisco\u2019s front office.\u00a0 Melvin had only been in the job for one season, and after he followed up that 80-82 campaign with an 81-81 mark in 2025, the Giants chose to fire Melvin once the 2025 campaign was over.\u00a0 This decision was made despite the fact that the Giants had exercised their 2026 club option on Melvin on July 1, yet the team\u2019s inconsistent play over the last three months convinced Posey that a change had to be made.<\/p>\n

Though Melvin\u2019s time in San Francisco was uneventful, it will be fascinating to see how the team and the organization as a whole adjusts from a Major League lifer (and three-time Manager of the Year winner) like Melvin to Vitello in his first foray into pro baseball.\u00a0 That said, Vitello has something of an old-school approach himself, with a focus on fundamentals and competitiveness.<\/p>\n

In a recent appearance on a Youth.inc podcast (hat tip to Baggarly for the partial transcript<\/a>), Vitello said \u201cI think everyone is suffering the consequences all the way up to the big leagues where guys are super skilled, but there\u2019s less development, less coaching, less accountability and therefore less understanding of how to actually play the game to win.\u00a0 And it starts all the way, trickle-down effect.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Baggarly notes, Posey has shared similar critiques about players, which may explain why Vitello became a more attractive managerial candidate in the PBO\u2019s eyes.\u00a0 It is also worth noting that Vitello may not have been Posey\u2019s initial top choice, as initial reports pegged former Giants catcher Nick Hundley<\/a><\/strong> as a favorite for the manager\u2019s position.\u00a0 Hundley withdrew his name from consideration<\/a>, reportedly due to concerns over how the day-to-day grind of managing in the big leagues would impact his family.<\/p>\n

Of all the names publicly linked to the Giants\u2019 search, former Orioles skipper Brandon Hyde was the only one with past managerial experience at the big league level.\u00a0 Other known candidates included Royals third base coach Vance Wilson<\/a><\/strong> and two ex-players in Hundley and Kurt Suzuki<\/a><\/strong> (just hired yesterday as the Angels\u2019 new manager) who had no coaching\/managerial experience in the majors or minors.\u00a0 Clearly a traditional managerial resume wasn\u2019t a key priority for Posey in assessing his choices, even if Vitello is a step beyond.<\/p>\n

Managing a big league team and coaching a college team are very different animals, not to mention the gap between coaching college kids and overseeing a clubhouse of highly-paid veteran professionals.\u00a0 That said, Vitello is renowned as a leader and motivator.\u00a0 As detailed in Baggarly\u2019s piece, such big leaguers as Scherzer and Angels reliever Ben Joyce<\/a><\/strong> (a Tennessee product) heavily praised Vitello, and think he\u2019ll thrive managing in the Show.<\/p>\n

With Vitello now in San Francisco, the Giants join the Angels (Suzuki) and Rangers (Skip Schumaker<\/a><\/strong>) as clubs who have now removed themselves from a busy managerial carousel.\u00a0 The Twins, Orioles, Padres, Nationals, Rockies, and Braves all remain as teams still looking for a new dugout boss.<\/p>\n

Andrew Baggarly, Brittany Ghiroli and Ken Rosenthal of The\u00a0<\/a>Athletic<\/a> first reported last week that the Giants were closing in on a deal with Vitello. Jacob Rudner of Baseball America<\/a> was first to report that an agreement was in place. John Shea of The San Francisco Standard<\/a> reported the contract terms. Photo courtesy of Brianna Paciorka \u2014 Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Giants finalized their bold managerial move on Wednesday. San Francisco announced that they\u2019ve hired University of Tennessee…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":326219,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[62,71438,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-326218","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tony-vitello","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115422973548813960","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=326218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326218\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/326219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}