When Buster Posey first arrived in a major-league clubhouse in 2009, Randy Winn was among the leading veteran voices who commanded the room and helped young players feel welcome. Now Posey is turning to Winn to foster the same environment throughout the San Francisco Giants farm system.
The Giants announced on Thursday that they are elevating Winn from a pro scouting role to vice president of player development, a newly created position in which he will oversee all aspects of the organization’s minor-league system and instruction. Winn will work in tandem with farm director Kyle Haines, who will be retained in his role as senior director of player development.
“We are excited to see Randy in this new role,” Posey said in a news release. “Randy is part of the Bay Area’s rich baseball history and brings a deep knowledge and understanding of the game from his playing and post-playing career. He has also been dedicated to serving the youth of our community through his work and leadership with the Giants Community Fund, and we feel Randy is the right person to help take our player development to the next level.”
Posey recently stated a desire to produce players who are well-rounded and would move through the system only as fast as the development of their overall skills allows. There weren’t many Giants players in recent decades who were more well-rounded than Winn, who excelled in the field and on the bases and hit .290/.345/.432 while playing five seasons of his 13-year career in San Francisco.
Winn reconnected with the Giants when his playing career ended, first serving as a roving base running and infield coach, then as a special assistant to then-GM Bobby Evans from 2018-19. Winn was added to the pro scouting staff in 2019 and he doubled as a studio analyst for NBC Sports Bay Area in recent years. Winn, 50, was named chairman of the Giants Community Fund this past September. He also served nine years as president of the Baseball Assistance Team (BAT) and is a current board member.
Winn graduated from San Ramon Valley High School in Danville and played basketball at Santa Clara University, where future NBA legend Steve Nash was among his teammates.
“I’m extremely grateful to Buster and to the Giants organization for this opportunity to lead our player development group and help usher in the next wave of future Giants stars,” Winn said in the news release. “I look forward to collaborating with both Buster and (GM) Zack (Minasian) and the entire baseball operations team to help this organization that has meant so much to me reach its ultimate goal of a World Series championship by helping lay the groundwork with homegrown talent that embodies the values of Giants baseball.”
The Giants farm system is generally graded in the middle of the pack league-wide and leans heavier on pitching talent, although 20-year-old first baseman Bryce Eldridge zoomed through the system from Low-A San Jose to Triple-A Sacramento last season and finished up his year with a brief stint in the Arizona Fall League in which he received an intensive crash course at first base. Eldridge’s development will be an ongoing conversation between Winn, Haines and Posey, as will the unavoidable challenges that come from their Triple-A affiliate sharing a facility with the Athletics next season. The Giants also must figure out the stadium situation at High-A Eugene after a ballot measure to find a new ballpark failed to pass.
When Posey started behind the plate in a major-league game for the first time, Winn was the starting right fielder on that day in September 2009. It was the only time that Posey and Winn would start in the Giants lineup together. Their careers intersected for the briefest moments at the end of a winning but unfulfilling year that did not include a postseason appearance. There were just four games in which Posey and Winn both appeared. Then they parted ways, as ballplayers always do at season’s end. Posey was just beginning a career that would transform a franchise. Winn, who had been acquired to prop up an aging team dominated by Barry Bonds, was a 35-year-old piece who no longer fit the franchise’s changing ambitions.
Now they’ll work together to try to create the next wave of transformative talent.
“Hopefully we can make headway in the minors,” Posey said at the GM Meetings in San Antonio last week. “If we set standards, whatever we decide those standards are going to be, then it’s, ‘You’re gonna move up if you’re doing these things, and if you’re not, you’re not gonna move up.’ That’ll be the fun part to piece that together.”
(Photo of Winn from 2009: Brad Mangin / MLB Photos via Getty Images)
