MLB team ‘closing in’ on hiring Tennessee coach Tony Vitello as manager, per report
Published:
An MLB team is “closing in” on making Tennessee coach Tony Vitello its new manager.
Industry sources told The Athletic on Saturday that the San Francisco Giants are close to hiring the 47-year-old Vitello to be their manager in 2026. The Giants had not responded yet to a request to comment on the report. According to The Athletic, Vitello said by text message that “there is nothing to confirm.”
Vitello has no managing experience at the major-league level or even in the minor leagues. He served as an assistant coach at Mizzou, his alma mater, TCU and Arkansas before taking the coaching job at Tennessee in 2018.
Vitello has taken Tennessee and turned the Volunteers baseball program from a lower-level SEC program into a national champion, guiding the Vols to the College World Series crown in 2024.
Now, according to The Athletic report, he’s going to get the opportunity to manager in another World Series, the Major League Baseball kind.
Vitello, a St. Louis native who played his college baseball at Mizzou from 2000-2002, has been Tennessee’s coach since 2018, leading the Vols to a 341-131 record in his 8 seasons in Knoxville. In 2024, he did the unthinkable, leading the Volunteers baseball program to the only national championship in its history.
He also led Tennessee to the College World Series in 2021 and 2023 before winning it all the following season.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
