SANTA CLARA, Calif. – Former Santa Clara baseball player and assistant coach Justin Viele was named the hitting coach for the San Francisco Giants on Wednesday.  

 

Viele, a four-year starter for the Broncos from 2009-13 who later returned to his alma mater as an assistant coach for the 2016 season, was named to San Francisco Giants first-year manager Gabe Kapler's staff.  

 

The Yorba Linda, California native served as the Los Angeles Dodgers minor league hitting coach the last three seasons where he worked with Farhan Zaidi, the current Giants President of Baseball Operations and Kapler.  

 

Viele was the hitting coach for the Class A Great Lakes Loons in 2019 and served in the same capacity for the Class A Advanced Rancho Cucamonga Quakes the year before.   In 2017, he was with advanced rookie Ogden.  

 

The 37th round draft pick in the 2013 First-Year Player Major League Draft by the Baltimore Orioles got his start in the coaching ranks after a two-year playing stint in the minors.  

 

Following the 2014 season, he became an assistant coach, at age 24, with the Frederick Keys, a Class A affiliate of the Orioles.   After the lone season with the Keys, Viele returned to Santa Clara as an assistant coach under then-head coach Dan O'Brien.  

 

As a player at Santa Clara, Viele started in 186 games including 161 consecutive starts playing middle infield, primarily at shortstop.  He collected 161 career hits, scored 110 runs and drove in 51 runs before graduating with a degree in sociology in 2013.  

 

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