SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — When the Giants open the season Wednesday, their roster will feature just three players drafted and developed in Farhan Zaidi’s five years in charge.
Simply put, the player development pipeline dried up under the previous regime.
In less than two years, Buster Posey has attempted to turn the spigots back on. To do so, the former catcher has flipped the organization’s priorities upside down from its nerd era.
“It’s been different, for sure. Now we’re focusing on different stuff,” Ydwin Villegas, the manager of the Giants’ Single-A affiliate in San Jose, told The California Post. “All the stuff that got away from us in the past few years.”
Villegas was a minor-leaguer in the Giants’ farm system during Posey’s playing days — when Brian Sabean was running the front office — and has coached in the organization since he hung up his cleats. This will be his third year leading the Single-A Giants.
Villegas’ team, according to Randy Winn, the club’s top minor-league official, encapsulated “Buster Posey’s vision for how he thinks we should play” better than any other in 2025.
The message from the top was simple: Move the runner over, get him in. Throw strikes. Hold runners on. Play sound defense. In other words, focus on the fundamentals.
“It’s been fun because when I played in the minor leagues, that’s what the focus was,” Villegas said. “If you start teaching all those little things in rookie ball and on up, players are going to go through the season knowing what to do, and it will be easier for them when they get to the big leagues.”
That was a contrast from the focus under Zaidi, who was hired in 2019 and fired after the 2024 season. At the big-league level, they preached waiting for the pitch that could produce maximal damage, even if that resulted in a strikeout or a walk, no matter the situation in the game.
The same focus trickled down to the minor leagues, at the cost of basic fundamentals.
“The previous years it was more like hitting the ball hard, doing damage, all that. Take a walk or do damage,” Villegas said. “Now it’s more like how to move the runner, how to get on base, scoring runs, bringing the runner in.”
Winn, a former teammate of Posey’s, was among the first additions to the Giants’ new front office under the three-time World Series champion. He took the title of vice president of player development, while their existing farm director, Kyle Haines, remained on in the same role.
“The thing that I’ve been most proud of,” Winn said of his first year, “was situational hitting, throwing strikes for pitchers, aggressive baserunning. You saw our younger players really hone in and do that very well. I think the poster child for that is our San Jose team.”
It paid off in the win-loss column. San Jose went on to win the California League championship for only the second time since 2010. Better yet, many of their top young prospects — including their first two picks in Posey’s first draft, infielder Gavin Kilen and outfielder Trevor Cohen — passed through and got a crash course in Posey’s Baseball 101.
“They all touched that team, and they got a taste,” Winn said. “Those guys ran the bases well, the pitchers threw a ton of strikes, we had great situational hitting. So, for me, that was the most exciting thing to see, was the young guys really hone in on all the things that we talked about as our goals and execute with it. And they won with it.”
The next step is winning at the major-league level.
The Giants expect to be competitive this year, but mostly because of additions made through free agency and via trade. Catcher Patrick Bailey, No. 5 starter Landen Roupp and utility infielder Casey Schmitt are the only remnants of the Zaidi era.
Nobody knows better than Posey the importance of a homegrown core in establishing a consistent World Series contender. Five former players will have their plaques added to the Giants’ Wall of Fame outside Oracle Park in a ceremony later this season: Posey, Pablo Sandoval, Brandon Crawford, Brandon Belt and Joe Panik.
Five players developed by the Giants who are among the most responsible for the three World Series trophies every player now passes on their way into the home clubhouse.