- Tony Vitello is the first college baseball coach to be hired directly as a Major League Baseball manager.
- The former University of Tennessee coach led the Volunteers to their first national title in 2024.
- Giants President of Baseball Operations Buster Posey cited Vitello’s ability to build a culture as a key reason for the hire.
After more than 30 minutes of mostly talking around the history he’s making, new San Francisco Giants manager Tony Vitello eventually conceded the skepticism he’s facing as the first college baseball coach to make the jump directly to Major League Baseball manager.
‘We’re in this together now, whether you like me or not,’ the former University of Tennessee coach told reporters on hand at Oracle Park in San Francisco for his introductory news conference.
Vitello spoke at length for the first time about the unprecedented challenge he’s taking on with MLB, replacing former Giants manager Bob Melvin after a very successful stint in Knoxville, Tennessee. The 47-year-old Vitello led the Vols to their first national title, winning the 2024 College World Series in one of UT’s three trips to Omaha in his tenure. He also coached Tennessee to two SEC regular-season titles and two SEC Tournament titles.
Here are five key takeaways and moments from Vitello’s question-and-answer session with reporters after becoming the San Francisco Giants’ new manager:
Why Giants hired Tony Vitello
Though the Giants are making history by elevating Vitello into this role, Giants GM Zack Minasian argued at Thursday’s news conference that ‘as much as this feels out of the box, Tony’s name has been bouncing around Major League Baseball for awhile.’
Giants President of Baseball Operations Buster Posey nonetheless said Vitello was oftentimes hard to reach during the hiring process, which began with casual conversations when the MLB regular season ended.
‘It’s something I’ve come to really appreciate about Tony and honestly made me feel more confident in this decision,’ Posey said. ‘This guy, he was hard to get a hold of. He was on the field all the time or he was bouncing from city to city recruiting, and just because this was on his plate, he was still full go with what his job was at Tennessee. I have a tremendous amount of respect for that. I wish it was easier to get in contact sometimes, but that’s a little bit of how it played out.’
Posey pointed to Vitello’s ability to build a culture, his direct manner and infectious personality as traits he valued most in his new manager.
‘We kept coming back to this one would be really interesting and just got even more interesting as we continued to speak,’ said Minasian.
‘When we sit in the draft room,’ he added, ‘there’s a lot of conversation about what was going on at that university and what Tony, in specific was doing with his players.’
Tony Vitello calls MLB job ‘a very recent dream’
Vitello was officially hired by the Giants on Oct. 22, with his name first surfacing in the coaching search a few days before that. The idea that he could be an MLB manager was not always on his mind.
‘As a coach, I was just trying to make my way,’ Vitello explained. ‘I got thrust into a position at a young age that I probably didn’t even deserve, so I was just trying to do a good job, and fortunately it helped get me to the next spot and the next spot and the next spot, and eventually this did become a dream, where I just decided if it was, if I was blessed enough to receive an opportunity, this is something I wanted to do before I was done coaching, in general.
‘And now I’m incredibly humbled and blessed to do so,’ he continued. ‘It is a dream come true, but it’s a very recent dream. It wasn’t one I had for a while and, as much as I’d like to sit up here and promise things and pound my fist on the desk, really all I want to do is a good job.’
Tony Vitello can’t say if style will change
Vitello’s teams at Tennessee were known as much for their personality as they were for winning, with their home run celebrations and rowdy antics often drawing headlines as Vitello turned the Volunteers into one of college baseball’s top programs. The very first question he faced Thursday revolved around whether that same managerial style can work in the majors or if he will have to change.
Vitello admitted he isn’t sure if that attitude translates to MLB players, only that he would take an individualistic approach to building relationships with players.
‘Whether it’s 162 (games), 56 or whatever, baseball is a sport that’s built on sample size and you have to be willing to separate each one as a mutually exclusive one and attack it for what it is at that particular time,’ Vitello said. ‘I wish I had an answer in my own head, to be honest with you, because as I first got here, I was like, ‘There are a lot of unknowns,’ and just a lot of wonder in my mind. Of course, you can ask people and draw on previous information, but until you live it out, you don’t know what it’s going to be like.’
‘Dues have come in a different way,’ he added, in reference to the fact that he also never played in the majors, ‘and hopefully respect will be earned in different ways, and the only way I know how to do that is through hard work.’
The start of more MLB, college baseball collaboration?
Vitello expressed optimism that his hiring would create more opportunities for MLB and college baseball to work together.
‘Trust me: I wouldn’t vote myself to be the pioneer of college baseball, but I think one thing that can come out of this is it’d be one step further of the two kind of melding together,’ Vitello said. ‘MLB supporting college baseball and doing things for it, and college baseball interacting with MLB, and see how those two things can meld or bridge together, I think, can be very, very beneficial to the game ‒ especially since some of the minor league teams have been taken away, and also especially since college baseball has risen in popularity so much. There is real star power and the fan following has kind of matched that, and some of those guys are in the big leagues two months after they get drafted.’
Tony Vitello brought up Giants’ 2014 World Series Game 7
Vitello played up his limited connections to the organization and the Bay area, noting he got his start in coaching in the California Collegiate League in nearby Salinas, California and learned about Giants tradition and the franchise’s culture through friends who were also fans. Vitello also made it a point to mention some of the franchise’s former greats, but it was an unprompted anecdote about Game 7 of the 2014 World Series that proved most endearing.
In the midst of a roundabout answer to how differently he’ll need to treat players in the majors compared to college, Vitello brought up Alex Gordon’s two-out single in the bottom of the ninth inning for the Kansas City Royals, in which he took three bases thanks to multiple errors by the Giants. San Francisco still managed to close out the 3-2 win, as Posey could attest.
‘I was at that game, by the way, behind home plate. It was rather intense,’ Vitello said.
‘Yeah, I’ll second that. It was,’ Posey, the Giants catcher in the game, deadpanned in response.