Tony Vitello on what's next for Tennessee Baseball: 'Gotta go get guys'
Tennessee Baseball isn’t going to Omaha for the first time since 2022. So when Tony Vitello was asked Sunday about the early start to the offseason, he was straight forward with his answers.
What’s next for the Vols after getting swept by Arkansas in the Fayetteville Super Regional?
“Gotta go get guys,” Vitello said during his postgame press conference after the 11-4 season-ending loss at Baum-Walker Stadium.
Tennessee will have plenty of talent to replace during the offseason. Eight Vols are ranked in MLB.com‘s ranking of the top 200 prospects for the MLB Draft: No. 9 Liam Doyle, No. 17 Gavin Kilen, No. 29 Andrew Fischer, No. 58 Dean Curley, No. 65 Marcus Phillips, No. 69 AJ Russell, No. 119 Tanner Franklin and No. 143 Nate Snead.
Kilen, Fischer, Doyle and Franklin were Tennessee’s NCAA Transfer Portal additions last summer.
“We were very fortunate with quality,” Vitello said, “maybe not necessarily quantity.”
And then there was the younger talent that Vitello said the Vols “bet on” for the 2025 season.
“I think you saw what Newey (Chris Newstrom) can do there,” he said, “what Jay (Abernathy) can do. And last time we were (at Arkansas), Levi (Clark) hit one out of the park. I could mention other guys too.”
Tennessee gets earlier start to offseason
Tennessee last season wasn’t done playing until June 24, after the Vols won the program’s first national championship in a three-game series against Texas A&M.
“Last summer was tough,” Vitello said. “We weren’t on our campus. It just didn’t work out as well as we would want to.”
This season the Vols get a two-week head start on the roster rebuild.
Tennessee has portal commitments from right-handed pitcher Clay Edmondson (UNC Asheville), Mason Estrada (MIT) and Bo Rhudy (Kennesaw State). The Vols have JUCO commitments from right-handed pitcher Matt Barr (SUNY Niagara) and infielder Tyler Myatt (Walters State).
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Vitello also has the No. 2 recruiting class in the country, according to Perfect Game, but that’s not good enough for the head coach.
‘Maybe getting shook up a little bit this particular weekend … will motivate us’
“You always want to recruit better,” Vitello said. “So, that’s what’s going to go on this summer. And then I think when you have success, I don’t think you loosen the reins or loosen things you do, but you can kind of get caught in a pattern.”
The on-field pattern, along with the national title won last season, has been five straight trips to Super Regionals — the longest such streak in college baseball — and three trips to Omaha in the previous four seasons.
The offseason pattern could look different, with an earlier start date.
“Maybe getting shook up a little bit this particular weekend and not going as well as we wanted,” Vitello said, ” … will motivate us to do some different things. Or maybe go back to our roots a little bit.”
