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  • Jose Alguacil, San Francisco Giants Triple-A manager of the Sacramento...

    Jose Alguacil, San Francisco Giants Triple-A manager of the Sacramento River Cats, throws the ball as he works with the team during workout session at spring training at Scottsdale Stadium in Scottsdale, Ariz., on Sunday, Feb. 26, 2016. (Josie Lepe/Bay Area News Group)

  • San Francisco Giants coach Jose Alguacil watches the players during...

    San Francisco Giants coach Jose Alguacil watches the players during workout session at a spring training workout session at Scottsdale Stadium in Scottsdale, Ariz., on Sunday, Feb. 28, 2016. (Josie Lepe/Bay Area News Group)

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SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — One of the brightest prospects in Giants camp this spring is a .237 hitter over seven minor league seasons. He’ll advance to the Triple-A level for the first time. And he’s 43 years old.

The Giants think the world of Jose Alguacil, which is why they are promoting him to manage their top farm club in Sacramento.

“He’s really been a constant presence in our system,” Giants G.M. Bobby Evans said of Alguacil, a former farmhand from Venezuela who spent eight seasons as a roving infield coach before being appointed to run the club at Double-A Richmond last year. “He works hard. He represents us in winter ball. He brings players to our organization. He’s a sponge. He’s always learning. And he’s a very constant, very positive person.”

Alguacil’s sunny disposition might have been challenged last year, after he took over in Richmond. It was his first managerial assignment. He thought long and hard about what he would say to his team before opening day. A boxing aficionado, he decided to show a 10-minute highlight video of the best comebacks in history.

“I mean, these guys are getting totally beat up, and they keep getting up and getting up and throwing punches and win the fight,” Alguacil said. “I told them, ‘I want you guys to know that can be us.’ “

The speech and video might have worked too well. Richmond started the season 2-17. Its losing streak lasted 15 games. Giants officials were concerned how Alguacil, with his limited experience, was holding up. Bruce Bochy called and spoke to him for 45 minutes one day, lending support and advising Alguacil to keep any frustrations hidden behind a calm exterior.

That wasn’t a problem for Alguacil, who is relentlessly upbeat. But the losing streak helped him realize that he needed to develop leadership from within the clubhouse, too.

“He challenged us, but he never blew up at us,” outfielder Mac Williamson said. “We were in it together. He’d harp on that: We couldn’t get down on each other, because we had to pull out of it together. He said, ‘I’m not asking for different players. This is the team I wanted to manage, and this is the team that will win together.’ “

When the Flying Squirrels broke the streak in Altoona, the players celebrated as if they had clinched a playoff spot. And remarkably, at the end of the season, they almost did. Even after a chunk of their core players — Williamson, infielder Kelby Tomlinson, closer Josh Osich — were promoted, the Flying Squirrels kept winning games. They finished 72-68 and missed the Eastern League playoffs by one game.

After the season, the Giants decided to reassign Triple-A manager Bob Mariano to a pro scouting role.

“There are a lot of veteran managers we could’ve brought in to run our Triple-A team, but Augie had earned our trust and earned the right to that opportunity,” Evans said of Alguacil, who was instrumental in bringing such players as Yusmeiro Petit, Jean Machi and Ryan Vogelsong to the Giants after they had caught his eye in Venezuela.

“We’re very proud of him, and we like the way he goes about his work. We believe he’s fair to the players, and the players see him as a guy they can trust and know that he has their back.”

Alguacil inherits a tough task. The organization’s Triple-A affiliate has posted a losing record 13 times in the last 18 seasons, hasn’t won a Pacific Coast League title since 1977 and hasn’t qualified for the PCL playoffs since 1998 — the first of 17 seasons when the team was in Fresno. (Many baseball fans in Fresno were unhappy when the Giants abandoned them for Sacramento last year, but their disappointment was tempered when a fresh roster of Houston Astros prospects won the PCL championship.)

Alguacil plans to take on the challenge with the same upbeat demeanor, and many of the same players he managed at Richmond. At the beginning of last season, he gave them Post-it notes and told them to write down their goals.

“Not, ‘I want to hit .300,’ but realistic goals on where you want to be at the end of the season, who you want to be, how you want to get better,” he said. “All those sticky notes went on the wall in my office, and every day I’d look at them and make sure they were getting to where they want to be. I’ll do that again this year.”

He might skip the boxing video, though. Or show all first-round knockouts.

“I’ve thought about that,” he said, smiling. “Maybe I don’t play that one again. Maybe I’ll play something different.”