Former Vols baseball coach Tony Vitello’s move to MLB looks like a huge misstep, but leaving Tennessee wasn’t the mistake
Former Tennessee Volunteers baseball coach Tony Vitello is off to an uneven start as the manager of the San Francisco Giants. Vitello left Tennessee last fall to take over as the Giants’ manager.
Former Tennessee Vols coach Tony Vitello’s first six weeks as an MLB manager haven’t gone great.
Vitello, who is in his first season as the manager of the San Francisco Giants after possessing no previous MLB experience, has seen his team lose 24 of 40 games to start the season. The only team with fewer wins is the New York Mets, which have one of the highest payrolls in MLB (the lolMets are providing some cover for Vitello from the national media).
On top of the losses, Vitello has already had a few awkward press conference moments, some public miscommunications with players, and some strange in-game decisions.
It’s still early in the season, but it’s not too early to suggest that Vitello made a misstep with his decision to give the big leagues a shot. But the misstep wasn’t necessarily his decision to leave Tennessee, it was the situation that he entered with the Giants.
Tony Vitello probably chose the wrong MLB job
I understand Vitello’s decision to leave Tennessee for MLB — reaching the big leagues is every baseball-loving kid’s dream. Vitello may never have forgiven himself if he passed up a chance to manage in the big leagues.
Taking the job in San Francisco, however, probably wasn’t the best idea.
For starters, the Bay Area is a fairly big media market, and the Giants are an iconic franchise. There’s nowhere to hide when the losses start mounting.
A bigger issue than the media market is the fact that San Francisco’s roster features a number of grizzled veterans. Third baseman Matt Chapman has been in the big leagues since 2017. The same goes for outfielder Harrison Bader and first baseman Rafael Devers.
Starting pitcher Logan Webb, second baseman Luis Arraez, and shortstop Willy Adames are among the other Giants starters with at least seven MLB seasons under their belt. This is a veteran roster. And it’s a roster that’s not all that well constructed.
As a result, Vitello is in a situation where he has a team full of veterans who aren’t performing well, and he’s supposed to figure out how to turn things around despite being in this spot for the first time in his baseball career.
The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal touched this week on why the situation is problematic for Vitello and the Giants.
Rosenthal noted that Vitello simply doesn’t have the same type of credibility with his players that other managers have.
“The Arizona Diamondbacks’ Torey Lovullo recently met with his starting pitchers, imploring them to throw more strikes,” wrote Rosenthal. “The meeting, in which Lovullo also allowed each of the pitchers to have their say, sparked immediate improvemen.
“Lovullo is in his 10th season. His words carry weight. Vitello, working in Major League Baseball for the first time after coaching at the University of Tennessee, might one day be a very good manager. But at this stage of his career, he cannot possibly possess the same type of credibility with his players.”
Simply put, Vitello isn’t in an ideal situation with the Giants. This isn’t the type of situation that a college coach with no previous MLB experience should be stepping into.
A better situation for Vitello, for example, would’ve been the Miami Marlins, which feature a young roster full of non-star players who are looking to make a name for themselves. The Marlins even play like a college team (they were calling pitches from the dugout in 2025). And Miami isn’t a media market that’s very tough on baseball players or managers.
The Marlins, though, already have a manager they like in Clayton McCullough, so they weren’t an option for Vitello this past offseason.
The point, however, is that Vitello would’ve been better off waiting on a situation like the one in Miami as opposed to jumping feet first into the deep end of the MLB pool without yet knowing if he can swim in those waters.
Maybe things will turn around for the Giants this season. Baseball is a funny sport and it’s usually unpredictable. But right now, it feels like it’s getting late early for San Francisco.
The good news for Vitello is that the Mets are still playing like a Double-A team despite having one of the largest payrolls in MLB, so Vitello should be able to duck the national media for at least a few more weeks.