3:15pm: The choice on whether or not Vitello would be the subsequent supervisor of the Giants or not is predicted throughout the subsequent 24 to 72 hours, in line with a report from ESPN’s Jeff Passan. Passan provides that whereas Vitello is the “high goal” of San Francisco at this level, the edges have but to succeed in a deal.
1:56pm: The Giants’ managerial search appears to be nearing an finish, with a stunning identify rising from the school ranks. The Athletic’s Andrew Baggarly, Brittany Ghiroli, and Ken Rosenthal report that “the Giants are closing in on hiring” College of Tennessee head coach Tony Vitello as their subsequent skipper. Vitello advised The Athletic by textual content that “there may be nothing to substantiate” in regards to the information, and the Giants additionally haven’t commented on the report.
The 47-year-old Vitello was an assistant baseball coach for Missouri (his alma mater), TCU, and Arkansas from 2003-2017 earlier than being employed for the highest job at Tennessee in June 2017. The Volunteers have since develop into an elite program, with a 341-131 file beneath Vitello’s watch and the varsity’s first NCAA nationwide championship in baseball in 2024. Past that School World Sequence victory, the Vols additionally reached the World Sequence in each 2021 and 2023, and so they had been SEC regular-season and match champions in each 2022 and 2024.
Past this sterling file in NCAA baseball, nonetheless, Vitello has no expertise as a participant, coach, or supervisor in skilled baseball. There have been examples in recent times of groups reaching out to rent faculty coaches or assistants to huge league teaching staffs, but hiring a supervisor with none expertise in an MLB group is a step past. Brewers skipper Pat Murphy is a notable instance of a present supervisor with plenty of faculty head teaching expertise, however as Baggarly/Ghiroli/Rosenthal be aware, Murphy had a few years as a minor league supervisor and a giant league bench coach (to not point out a stint because the Padres’ interim supervisor) in between his NCAA work and his managerial job with the Brewers.
Vitello’s identify doesn’t come out of the blue, as Baggarly talked about him as a doable managerial candidate a bit of beneath three weeks in the past, when rumors had been swirling about Bob Melvin being on the way in which out in San Francisco. Baggarly felt the Giants can be on the lookout for “a youthful supervisor who operates with a excessive motor” as Melvin’s alternative, and the names linked to the workforce’s managerial search have typically match this description. Former Orioles supervisor Brandon Hyde and Royals third base coach Vance Wilson are each 52 years previous, and former catchers Kurt Suzuki and Nick Hundley are each 42 years previous.
With regard to Hundley, the Athletic reporters be aware that he’s now “anticipated to stay in Texas” in his present job as a particular assistant to president of baseball operations Chris Younger. Previous stories indicated Hundley was a giant candidate and presumably the front-runner for the San Francisco job, however Hundley will now stay with the Rangers. It isn’t identified if the Giants merely most well-liked to go together with Vitello, or if Hundley might have taken himself out of the operating, as he did in 2023 when he was beforehand thought-about as a candidate for the Giants’ final managerial emptiness.
Assuming Vitello certainly leads to San Francisco, it represents a daring transfer for each the coach and for the Giants group. Vitello can be “leaving the consolation of his fiefdom for a job that provides something however stability,” because the Athletic trio places it. From the angle of president of baseball operations Buster Posey, changing a three-time MLB supervisor of the yr in Melvin with somebody solely new to professional baseball is a big swing for Posey’s very first managerial rent since taking on the Giants’ entrance workplace a yr in the past.
The Giants’ 107-win season in 2021 represents the workforce’s solely playoff look and profitable file within the final 9 years, as San Francisco’s subsequent greatest marks had been 81-81 file in each 2022 and 2025. This season’s .500 file wasn’t sufficient for Posey within the wake of some huge long-term acquisitions (Matt Chapman, Willy Adames, Rafael Devers) throughout the final yr, and Melvin’s dismissal was the most recent step in Posey wanting to thoroughly put his stamp on the franchise’s operations.
There can be no scarcity of fascinating subplots to a Vitello rent, essentially the most urgent being merely how a school coach’s techniques can translate to motivating and main a clubhouse of seasoned main leaguers. Vitello’s NCAA credentials are pretty much as good as anybody’s, however as we’ve seen numerous occasions within the NFL, NBA, or NHL, teaching the skilled recreation is vastly totally different than being successful within the collegiate ranks. The Giants have had issue in luring top-tier free brokers prior to now, and it’s price questioning how these pursuits could possibly be impacted with Vitello within the combine — would free brokers balk at taking part in beneath an inexperienced supervisor, or would Vitello’s recruiting strategies work as properly on huge leaguers as they do on blue-chip faculty prospects?
