A Giant Leap: Tennessee Volunteers Baseball Coach Vitello Named New SF Skipper

Talk about a giant leap.

The San Francisco Giants have hired Tennessee Volunteers head baseball coach Tony Vitello to manage the team.

This marks the first time in MLB history that a team has hired a college baseball coach to manage a team without any previous coaching experience at the professional level. Vitello led the Volunteers to a College World Series title in 2024.

When I learned about Vitello's hiring, I thought of the late Bobby Winkles who guided Arizona State University to three College World Series titles in the 1960s. Winkles would jump from ASU to the pros when he was named to the California Angels coaching staff in 1972 and would become its skipper the following season and would later briefly manage the Oakland A's during the latter part of Charlie Finley's ownership. But Winkles was a minor league player in the White Sox organization. Not only has Vitello not coached at the professional level, but he also never played at the professional level.

If this works, then Vitello will be the first of many college baseball coaches who will jump directly into MLB managerial roles. If not, then Giants President Buster Posey will have egg on his face, and nobody will touch the idea for 50 years. Still, there is no reward without risk.