After days of speculation that the San Francisco Giants were nearing a decision about their next manager, they are reportedly set to hire Tennessee head coach Tony Vitello.

Per ESPN’s Pete Thamel and Jeff Passan, Vitello is finalizing a deal with the Giants that will make him the first person ever to go from college to MLB without any previous experience at the professional level.

Toronto Blue Jays right-hander Max Scherzer, a three-time Cy Young award winner who had Vitello as his pitching coach at Missouri, noted he “absolutely” believes Vitello can succeed in the majors:

When the Giants announced on Sept. 29 that Bob Melvin had been fired less than three months after they picked up his team option for 2026, president of baseball operations Buster Posey was coy when talking about what he wanted from the next manager.

“I have ideas,” Posey said. “I have people in mind, but I’ll keep that to myself.”

There was speculation that the Giants could pursue Bruce Bochy, who previously managed the club from 2007 to ’19, given his history with the organization and Posey.

However, Posey told reporters during his end-of-season press conference that he didn’t envision going down that route even though he welcomed the idea of Bochy having some role with the team if he wanted one.

Vitello has had a meteoric rise to become one of the top coaches at the college level. He spent 15 years as an assistant with three different programs prior to being hired by Tennessee in June 2017.

At the time of Vitello’s hiring, Tennessee’s baseball program had not had a winning record in SEC play or made the College World Series since 2005. The Vols started with back-to-back losing seasons in conference play under his watch and they didn’t get to SEC games in 2020 before the season was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since the start of the 2021 season, Vitello has a 257-81 overall record (99-51 in SEC play) with two conference regular-season and tournament titles. The Volunteers won their first national title in 2024.

The Giants will be hoping Vitello can have that kind of impact on their organization. They have finished .500 or worse in eight of the past nine seasons and haven’t won a full playoff series since the 2014 World Series, not counting the one-game wild card playoff victory over the New York Mets in 2016.