Yahoo Sports senior MLB analyst Jake Mintz and senior MLB analyst Jordan Shusterman discuss the significance of the San Francisco Giants possibly hiring University of Tennessee baseball coach Tony Vitello. Hear the full conversation on the “Baseball Bar-B-Cast” podcast – and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.
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Video Transcript
There are a bazillion managerial openings right now around Major League Baseball, and at no point did we seriously think that any of them would be filled by a college baseball coach, and that is what seems to be maybe potentially happening for the San Francisco Giants, who, according to reports from Ken Rosenthal and Britton Arroyo and Jeff Passan, are making significant headway.
Towards hiring the head coach at the University of Tennessee, Tony Vitello.
Now, why is this significant?
Um, Vitello would be the first college head coach to make the leap directly to an MLB manager’s chair ever.
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The system that Tony Vitello is running is a recruiting and development monster that Tennessee has become.
Very, very quickly.
This is, of course, a program that has had some, you know, big-time names over the years, you know, the Todd Heltons of the world, but it was not until really the last five or so years that they became very quickly I mean, it was, they kind of just went, you know, 0 to 100.
It was like, all right, they’re getting good, they’re getting good.
Oh, OK, they’re the best, they are maybe the best program.
And Vitello has been a big part of that, and they won the national championship, uh, two years ago.
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The money still doesn’t make sense to me because Vitello was making three million a year in Knoxville.
Which is the equivalent of like 4.5, five in San Francisco.
And so the Giants are gonna have to pay this guy who’s never managed a game in the big leagues, never stepped foot in a big league dugout, pay him like one of the highest paid coaches in Major League Baseball.
If they’re willing to take that risk, I just can see a scenario where this is all leveraged for Tony Vitello to get a bigger deal back home at Tennessee, and that next year he’s not manning the Giants.
That would not be surprising.
It would not be shocking, but that we are even at this point is a fascinating development in our sport.