Jerar Encarnación will save us!

I mean, unless sliders exist, but what are the odds of that?

Relatively early in Spring Training this year, it became clear that the Giants intended to have Jerar Encarnación on the roster. His stint in the majors in 2024 had its flaws — a 4% walk rate and a .277 OBP, for example — but he showed good power, and had certainly lit up AAA in his time with the River Cats, so he already had the inside track before hitting a couple homers in the early going in Arizona.

Then Encarnación broke his hand trying to make a diving catch, and he lost his Opening Day roster spot in favor of an Opening Day Injured List spot, which is almost as prestigious, if somewhat more painful. After healing, he had a rehab assignment in Sacramento, tearing the cover off the ball just as thoroughly as he did there in 2024, and got activated off the IL yesterday, just in time for him to personally save the team from its own offensive ineptitude.

The fact that Encarnación got three at-bats yesterday and emphatically did not save the team from its own offensive ineptitude is irrelevant here, and you are frankly very rude for bringing it up.

Right now, Encarnación is the hope for the offense. He takes some of the at-bats that were going to Luis Matos, Casey Schmitt, and LaMonte Wade Jr, hits some homers, maybe gets some other guys some better pitches to hit, and the team gets better. That’s the plan, anyway, or if plan is too strong a word, then that’s definitely at least the hope. For months, management’s view has been that the strongest version of this roster includes Encarnación. Well, here he is.

Is this going to work? Is Jerar Encarnación a good enough hitter to make a difference for the Giants? That is, at the very least, open for debate. Yes, he hit extremely well in the Mexican League last year and then hit extremely well in Sacramento. Yes, he hit well in Sacramento this year too on his rehab assignment. His career major league experience consists of 203 plate appearances over three different seasons, so it’s not like he has an extensive track record to draw on for the upcoming paragraphs in which I will be skeptical about Encarnación’s chances in the majors this year.

But I’m skeptical about Encarnación’s chances in the majors this year. He had a small sample last year in the majors, and it’s not like he did no good things, but he also had a walk rate of 4% and a strikeout rate of 28.6%, and those are incredibly concerning numbers together. He swung at 36.8% of pitches outside of the strike zone, which would be the 12th worst mark in the majors this year. And he swung at just 58.7% of pitches in the zone, which would be 27th worst. He didn’t make a lot of contact either, which explains both the strikeouts and the walks. Jose Altuve was successful with similar plate discipline numbers last year, but Encarnacion and Altuve are very different hitters, so it’s probably not worth comparing them.

It’s not like it’s been better this year, either. Encarnación only had 28 AAA plate appearances before being called up, but in them, those plate discipline numbers were very similar to what they were in the majors last year. He’s simply not seeing the ball well enough, and because of that, he’s making poor swing decisions. “Swing decisions” were a buzzword under the former regime, and they probably overly relied on them in player evaluation, but they are still a good tool that can tell you a lot about a player, and what they tell us about Encarnación is that he doesn’t make good swing decisions, which makes him easy to strike out, typically frowned upon.

But! The team thinks that Jerar Encarnación can save them, and dammit, we’re going to try to talk ourselves into believing it. He had a ton of power in AAA last year, hitting 10 homers in just 146 plate appearances and sporting a .264 ISO. He has an all-field approach that Mike Krukow will occasionally gush over. He is not LaMonte Wade Jr. The positives are nearly as endless as the negatives, and they all revolve around his bat.

Because if you thought that maybe Encarnación could at least step in defensively and plug some holes, well, yes, he could technically do that, but it might not be the greatest idea. I saw Encarnación play two different positions on the field two different times last week, and it was very clear that defense was not his game. At first base, I saw him miss a fairly easy grounder, and never look quite comfortable; in right field, he was stuff and slow, and missed some balls that a faster, better outfielder likely would have gotten to.

It’s his bat, then, that will have to carry the day, and his bat alone. What that means is that his bat has to suddenly get better than it’s been at any point while he’s been in the Giants organization. Encarnación has to justify his presence on the roster over Luis Matos’s because otherwise, they could just use the younger guy.

Will that work? I’d put my money on No if I were into sports gambling and for some reason needed to bet on an obscure player on the West Coast. But Encarnación could surprise us all. He certainly surprised everyone in Mexico when he went there and hit .366/.439/.989. Does he have it in him to do it again? For the sake of a team that hasn’t scored 5 runs in a game since mid-May, we’re just gonna have to hope so.