In the aftermath of the San Francisco Giants going outside the box by hiring Tennessee head coach Tony Vitello as their new manager, the way MLB teams approach finding people for that role could be changing.

As one current coach with previous MLB managerial experience told ESPN’s Alden Gonzalez, the college-to-pro pipeline is “viewed very weirdly” by people within the league:

“No matter how much baseball has grown, and it’s certainly moving forward, you still have that kind of old-school thought, whereas if this was NFL football, or if it was NBA basketball—college coaches make that jump all the time. But in baseball, it’s viewed very weirdly. Our system is ass-backwards in a way.”

There were nine managerial vacancies this offseason, with five of the people hired having no previous experience in the role. Warren Schaeffer of the Colorado Rockies is entering his first season as a full-time manager after being the team’s interim for the final 122 games in 2025.

Vitello is the name that stands out the most from that group because he had no previous connection to MLB. He went right into coaching at the college level as an assistant after his college playing career ended in 2002.

It took Vitello 16 years as an assistant at four different institutions before Tennessee hired him as its head coach in June 2017. He took over a program that hadn’t finished higher than fourth in SEC East play since 2005 and had it winning a conference regular season and tournament title by his fifth year.

The 2024 season saw the Volunteers win a program-record 60 games and the national title for the first time ever.

Despite Vitello’s success in building up Tennessee into a national power, former MLB manager Joe Maddon called the Giants’ decision to hire him “insulting” because he has no experience at the professional level.

This does seem to speak to the ways that the managerial job has changed in MLB in recent years. It’s become a much more collaborative position, with members of the front office and analytics staff having more of a say in moves that get made within the course of each game.

Managers are still the ones in the locker room who need to forge relationships with players. We have no idea how someone like Vitello is going to fare in that part of the job, but there’s no reason to pre-judge his ability to do that before we have seen it play out.