Ydwin Villegas knows how challenging it can be to be a minor-league baseball player – the travel, being away from family, playing every day.
The demands can seem endless.
“It’s a tough game, and we can’t make it harder,” said Villegas, who returns this spring for a third straight season as the San Jose Giants’ manager.
The Giants play the Pioneer League Oakland Ballers on Tuesday night in an exhibition game dubbed Battle of the Bay 2.1 at San Jose’s Excite Ballpark in a final tuneup before the Cal League opens on Thursday.
Villegas led the Giants to the playoffs each of the past two seasons, and the team capped off a dominating 2025 by sweeping both of its playoff series to capture the franchise’s first California League championship since 2021.
Last season, the San Jose Giants captured the franchise’s first California League title since 2021. It was San Jose’s seventh title since it became a Giants affiliate in 1988.
SHELLY VALENZUELA/SAN
JOSE GIANTS
Villegas, 35, was a minor leaguer himself from 2008-14, a career that brought him from Valencia, Venezuela, to the United States at the age of 17.
He had three stints with San Jose as a player, an experience that gives him an intimate understanding of the shoes his players walk in. And he uses that knowledge to his – and his players’ – benefit every day at Excite Ballpark. The Giants are 155-108 in two seasons under Villegas and last season went 5-0 in the playoffs.
Villegas says it starts with having a good conversation.
“Asking them about their families, trying to get to know them, because a lot of things that go on behind the scenes, you have to know what’s going on at home,” said Villegas, who led the Class-A Giants to the California League championship last season.
“You have to know how they’re doing off the field. Because some players, they play hard, they go through a lot during the games and practice and all that. But we don’t really know what’s going on behind these things. And that’s why it’s really important to ask them and have that conversation.”
Villegas was once in need of one of those conversations.
Ydwin Villegas has led the San Jose Giants to
the playoffs in each of his first two seasons as the team’s manager.
SHELLY VALENZUELA/SAN JOSE GIANTS
“What helped me was I had a roommate,” he said. “He was Venezuelan, but he moved to Canada when he was 12, and then he learned English and French. He helped me a lot. So he basically told me, ‘Let’s go get some food. Let’s go to a mall. I just want you to listen to me, how I ask for things, how I interact with people. And then the following week, I want to let you do it.’
“And then that’s the way I did it. We’re so afraid of making mistakes, or saying the wrong thing or the pronunciation and all that. We just sit back waiting for somebody to translate. So that’s why we take a lot of time to learn, because we’re not really listening. When I tried to listen, to pay more attention, I started picking up some words.”
Villegas relates well to San Jose’s Latino players, but he tries to bridge the gap between players from different cultures in the clubhouse. Many minor league players come from significantly different backgrounds.
The manager’s charge is to unite them. Villegas’s three-year run as San Jose manager is the franchise’s longest since Andy Skeels guided the team from 2011 through the 2013 season. Lenn Sakata managed San Jose from 2004-07, the longest continuous run of his eight seasons with the team.
“As a Latino, we’re a little bit louder,” Villegas said. “And then some Americans, they’re more quiet. I always try to keep a balance in the clubhouse, to make sure they’re interacting together and helping each other, which has been great.
“Last year, we had really good chemistry in the clubhouse. You saw some American players trying to learn Spanish and vice versa.”
Some players even requested to room on the road with players from other countries.
“Which is great,” Villegas said, “because that way, they get together and they feel more comfortable being around the clubhouse. It’s definitely a challenge to do it, but we always try our best to keep everybody together, because at the end of the day, it’s a team, and we have to play together to be able to succeed.”
Last season, the San Jose Giants captured the franchise’s first California League title since 2021. It was San Jose’s seventh title since it became a Giants affiliate in 1988.
SHELLY VALENZUELA/SAN
JOSE GIANTS
San Francisco Giants assistant coach Alex Burg played with Villegas when they were in San Jose in the late 2000s and early 2010s. To him, what made Villegas a professional as a player is standing out in his coaching career.
“He connects to everybody, and he’s such a humble individual,” Burg said. “This guy’s a lifelong Giant. He wants the Giants to be great, and he brings that every single day. He’s a tireless worker. Every day, he shows up. He’s in Arizona right now. He shows up almost every day. He’s working with these guys when he doesn’t really have to. They see the effort and the care that he has, and it makes you want to play for him. It makes you want to be around him.”
Villegas is navigating his role while dealing with uncertainty back home in Venezuela. Though his wife and two children live in Arizona, where Villegas makes his offseason home, his parents and siblings remain in a country that recently lived through the capture and extradition of its president, Nicolas Maduro, to the United States.
Many Venezuelans are not fans of Maduro, who has been accused of human rights violations during his 13-year tenure.
“Something needed to happen there, because it’s been bad for many, many years,” Villegas said. “And obviously, we don’t want crazy stuff happening over there, but something needed to happen for us to recover from all that dictatorship we have over there. So I’m just hoping this is the beginning for a new Venezuela, the Venezuela we used to have 20 years ago.”
While he sends well wishes to his family and friends back home, he has a tough task ahead, trying to top last year’s success on the field.
San Jose won the Cal League with an 81-51 record, achieving its highest win total since 2013.
The Giants had lost in the first round of the Cal League playoffs for three straight seasons since their most recent league title in 2021. They enter this season looking to repeat as league champions for the first time since 2009-10.
Villegas eventually has his sights set on managing in the major leagues.
But for now, he’s enjoying his time in the minors, grateful he found his way to San Jose and determined to see things through while continuing to grow and improve as a coach.
Or, as he says, finding the best version of himself.
“Being in the younger levels now means a lot, because this is the beginning for those players,” he said. “They need a lot of help. They’re learning the fundamentals. They’re learning everything about the game. For me, to have the opportunity to teach them how to play the game the right way, how to be a professional on and off the field, is a pleasure.”
