Giants president of baseball operations Buster Posey made history this offseason, hiring an incredible college baseball personality with zero big league experience as San Francisco’s new manager.
MLB commissioner Rob Manfred joined KNBR’s “Murph & Markus” on Tuesday morning to give his opinion on the Tony Vitello hire.
“I think the hiring of a college coach to be a big league manager is part of a larger evolution in the relationship between college baseball and MLB,” Manfred claimed.
Vitello, on Wednesday, will become the league’s first manager without any prior professional experience, but his preparation isn’t in question.
The Giants went 19-9 in spring training, even without some key pieces due to the World Baseball Classic. It’s challenging to gauge talent from spring training for several reasons, but the culture shift since Vitello’s arrival is hard to miss.
“The college programs … many of them are high quality,” Manfred continued. “They produce players that we draft in increasing numbers every year.”
There are many ties between Vitello and players within the Giants organization, including Drew Gilbert, who played under Vitello for three seasons at the University of Tennessee.
“I don’t think that there’s anything unusual about the development of someone who’s been tremendously successful at the college level getting a major league job,” Manfred concluded.
San Francisco is set to take on the New York Yankees on Wednesday night at Oracle Park to begin the 2026 MLB season. This entire year will be full of firsts for Vitello, but those around him are confident he has what it takes to get this team out of mediocrity and back into the playoffs.