Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports
Ron Wotus has been with the Giants in some form since the year Brandon Belt was born, and that streak will not end next season.
Wotus has been asked back and accepted, KNBR confirmed. The 2021 season will be his 34th year with the organization, having been a minor leaguer in 1988 and ’89, minor league coach in ’90 and minor league manager beginning in ’91.
“I’m not going anywhere. I will be back for this upcoming season,” Wotus told NBC Sports Bay Area’s Amy G on “Wine Wednesday,” adding it hasn’t yet been formalized. “… This is where I want to be. Everybody knows that. I spent my whole career here. I’m not looking to go anywhere. I want to get us back to where we were when we were winning championships.”
Wotus has been a major league coach with the Giants since 1998 and was the bench coach on the 2010, ’12 and ’14 championship teams. He served as the third-base coach in Gabe Kapler’s first year in San Francisco, Wotus helping the transition from Bruce Bochy to a younger manager with an even younger staff.
Repeatedly, Kapler and the other 12 coaches on staff were effusive in what Wotus’ experience and demeanor meant to the team. It was Wotus who, on July 25, toasted Kapler after his first win as Giants manager, a 5-4 triumph in Los Angeles.
“Ron Wotus is just a class act,” Kapler said then of the 59-year-old. “He opened up a nice bottle of wine and prepared a nice toast for the coaching staff.”
The role Wotus will occupy still will have to be worked out, as the Giants have not announced the ’21 staff. But it would be a surprise if it looks much different than the ’20 group, which Kapler and Farhan Zaidi praised, the manager pointing out the club overachieved with a staff that was working together for the first time.
“I think our staff did a really nice job of preparing our players to win baseball games and put them in positions to succeed,” Kapler said at the end-of-season Zoom conference.