The San Francisco Giants hiring a manager like Tony Vitello, whom they are said to be pursuing, comes with some risks.

The head coach at the University of Tennessee since 2018, Vitello has never managed, coached or even played at the professional level, majors or minors. He would be the first manager in major league history to make such a jump. Vitello having done all of those things -- play, coach and manage as a professional -- no doubt would inform him on his first day as Giants manager. It's not ideal Vitello hasn't ridden with the boys on the buses over the back roads to bush league games.

But it's not everything, and Giants general manager Buster Posey knows it.

Here's what Vitello has done: develop major league ballplayers. That's a quality major league teams want in a manager t

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