Tony Vitello Talks Development, Youth Baseball, Taking Your Game to the Next Level

It is often said that baseball is a game of failure, but with a good mindset that failure can turn into improvement, which can result in success. Nobody embodies that approach better than Tennessee coach Tony Vitello, who took over a downtrodden Vols program and turned it into a national champion.

Vitello, who was 341-131 as a college head coach and on Wednesday was named manager of the San Francisco Giants, joined the Youth Inc. podcast and outlined some of the most important factors to success.

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Key Takeaways

Personality shouldn’t just been encouraged. It should be a requirement.

There’s a lot of downtime in baseball. In the dugout, before games, in practice. So, teams with personalities are often successful. Vitello cited and 2004 Red Sox (the band of idiots) as a prime example.

A good philosophy in youth sports is like how you hold a baseball: firm and loose.

Establish structure and expectations, but allow kids to be kids. If it isn’t fun then kids aren’t going to play.

“Figure out the dials,” said Vitello. “You’re never going to be perfect, but that’s the fun of it.”

You need to bring your resume with you.

What do you bring to a team or program? Are you well rounded? A hard worker? Good in the classroom? These are things that coaches look for the most when recruiting players.

Understand what you’re trying to get better at.

It is winning or development? Uniforms and walk-up songs? Parents and youth baseball coaches need to ask themselves what’s really important and not get caught up in the moment.

Evolving is so important in baseball.

Things will never be lined up fully, but you’re always trying to line up the panels on the same side of a rubix cube.

Map out where you want to go and create a plan.

“Sequence has been lost,” said Vitello. “Development has been derailed in certain areas because sequence is out of whack. Everything is instant gratification, it’s go, go, go. Where’s the runway?”