Antoan Richardson. Butch Dill-USA TODAY Sports
The Giants’ staff is coming together.
As spring training approaches, the Giants announced Tuesday they will be filling out their coaching staff with Antoan Richardson, who will be first base, outfield and baserunnning coach, and Nick Ortiz as quality assurance coach.
Richardson, who at 36 will fit in with this young coaching unit, is an in-house hire, having served as minor league field coordinator last season, his first with the Giants — as a coach at least. He was a 2005, 35th-round pick of the Giants out of Vanderbilt, briefly reaching the majors with Atlanta in 2011 and then with the Yankees in 2014.
Speaking of the Yankees, that’s where the Giants have plucked Ortiz from. The 46-year-old — ancient by these standards, becoming the second-oldest coach on staff behind holdover Ron Wotus — broke into the Yankees’ ranks as a scout, then transitioned into a low-level manager in 2016. The Puerto Rico native is a native Spanish speaker — which the Giants had been searching for — and a baseball lifer who has seen just about everything. He was drafted by the Red Sox in 1990 and was still playing in Independent ball in 2007, plus making another appearance in the Puerto Rico Winter League in 2012-13.
There still may be more announcements about coaching hires, but the staff under Kapler, a third-year MLB manager but rookie in San Francisco, also includes Craig Albernaz (bullpen/catching coach), Andrew Bailey (pitching coach), Brian Bannister (director of pitching), Kai Correa (bench/infield coach), Donnie Ecker (hitting coach), Ethan Katz (assistant pitching coach), Dustin Lind (director of hitting/assistant hitting coach), Justin Viele (hitting coach) and Wotus (third base coach).