{"id":244064,"date":"2025-10-22T17:39:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T17:39:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/244064\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T17:39:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T17:39:07","slug":"san-francisco-giants-finalizing-deal-to-hire-university-of-tennessees-tony-vitello-as-new-manager-sources-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/244064\/","title":{"rendered":"San Francisco Giants finalizing deal to hire University of Tennessee’s Tony Vitello as new manager, sources say"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — The San Francisco Giants<\/a> are finalizing a deal to hire University of Tennessee head baseball coach Tony Vitello as their next manager, sources tell ESPN.<\/p>\n

After days of speculation, the team reportedly agreed to terms with Vitello on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

While Vitello has never worked in professional baseball, he’s widely regarded as one of the best coaches in college baseball.<\/p>\n

RELATED: Giants talking with Bruce Bochy but not to manage, Posey says<\/a><\/p>\n

He took the University of Tennessee to the College World Series in three of the last five years, winning the NCAA National Championship in 2024.<\/p>\n

Vitello would become the first manager in major league history to jump directly from a college program to the big leagues without experience in a professional organization.<\/p>\n

He takes over the Giants job from Bob Melvin, who was fired at the end of the season after the Giants finished 81-81 and missed the playoffs for a fourth straight year.<\/p>\n

MORE: Giants fire manager Bob Melvin after ‘disappointing’ season<\/a><\/p>\n

San Francisco president of baseball operations Buster Posey has considered several managerial candidates, among them former Giants catcher Nick Hundley and another pair of former big league catchers in Vance Wilson and Kurt Suzuki, who was hired by the Los Angeles Angles on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The Giants have instead trained their interest on Vitello, who has distinguished himself as one of the preeminent recruiters and talent developers in the country during a two-decade career as an assistant and head coach in college.<\/p>\n

The move from college to professional baseball is rare, though not unprecedented. Milwaukee Brewers manager Pat Murphy spent 25 years coaching in college before joining the San Diego Padres, with whom he managed in the minor leagues.<\/p>\n

Murphy then spent eight years as the Brewers’ bench coach before taking over as manager in 2024, when he was named National League Manager of the Year.<\/p>\n

MORE: 2025 MLB offseason manager changes: Tracking hirings, firings<\/a><\/p>\n

Vitello’s transition to the major leagues would come at a far more rapid pace. He would inherit a Giants team competing in a loaded NL West, with the division-winning Los Angeles Dodgers clinching a World Series berth Friday night.<\/p>\n

Vitello’s philosophies on the game and personality intrigued Posey and aligned with what the future Hall of Famer hopes to build in San Francisco, sources said.<\/p>\n

In an interview with ESPN in June, Vitello said his reputation as a rabble-rouser did not bother him and that he had no plans to change his approach to coaching, which called for boundary-pushing.<\/p>\n

“I think you don’t know where the line is until you cross it. And then you make an adjustment,” Vitello said. “I don’t want our guys, if they give them a coloring book, I don’t want them just coloring inside the lines. You know, come up with something different.”<\/p>\n

ESPN and ABC7 News contributed to this article<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2025 KGO-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — The San Francisco Giants are finalizing a deal to hire University of Tennessee head…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":244065,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[133815,4,450,451,3,452,453],"class_list":{"0":"post-244064","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"tag-133815","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-breakingnews","11":"tag-headlines","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244064\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}