Ranking the security of every 40-man spot
Hey, let’s do some baseball talk! We’re going to ignore all the Bad Things going on in baseball, and how today is the anniversary of a Bad Thing in the country, and we’re going to keep on trucking and talk about the Giants 40-man roster. Why? Because this is good offseason content, baby, even if this isn’t a good offseason.
Here’s what I did, I looked at the Giants 40-man roster here, and sorted all the players into tiers, based on how likely it is that they’ll still be on the 40-man at the start of Spring Training and stay on it throughout the year. Will this be controversial? No, because not that many people read this newsletter. Would it be controversial if I had higher readership? Absolutely, yes.
We’ll start with the gimmes, the guys who will definitely stick around for the season. Guys who on the roster weirdly all look like this:
I wonder why they’re all identical? Maybe we’ll never know.
As secure as it gets
Alex Cobb
Anthony DeSclafani
Jake McGee
Tyler Rogers
Logan Webb
Alex Wood
Brandon Belt
Brandon Crawford
Wilmer Flores
Darin Ruf
There are guys on this list (McGee, Ruf) who could have a terrible year and be off the team by mid-season. It’s not impossible.
But for now, coming into Spring Training, assuming that we are actually coming into Spring Training (we’ll talk more about that next week, unless I forget!), these players are absolute stone-cold locks to be Giants this year.
It would take a staggering trade offer (which is not happening)
Camilo Doval
Joey Bart
Heliot Ramos
This is not to say that all of these three are equally important to the Giants’ future. Doval is obviously important to their present, Bart is maybe the most important player on the roster, and if Ramos lives up to his potential then he’ll be a cornerstone of the Giants outfield for years to come. The team values each of these players highly, and would be loath to part with any of them.
But if the right deal came along…maybe.
It’s probably the longest shot for Bart to get dealt, considering the team’s dire catching situation, but it’s also possible that, for example, the A’s are much higher on him than the Giants are. It’s possible that the Giants watched Joey Bart in Sacramento all year, thought he was a fine player with some flaws in his game, and isn’t ever going to be more than that. It’s possible that the A’s come calling, offering Frankie Montas to pry Bart loose. It’s possible that the Giants think, yeah, that’s the best value we’re going to get, and then they put a deal together.
I’m not saying that’s likely. I’m not saying that’s their evaluation of Joey Bart. I don’t know how the team really evaluates Bart, but a .294/.358/.472 line in the PCL isn’t that good. It has to be a possibility that instead of being the next Buster Posey, he’s the next not-Buster Posey.
You can make similar, if milder, arguments for Doval and Ramos. A potential everyday catcher like Bart is more important than a potential closer like Doval, but it’s not like the team would give up that closer for peanuts. If they really believe in Sonny Gray, though, and the Reds will take a Doval-centered package, why not? Or if they’d take a Ramos-centered package, don’t you have to consider it? Of course you do, if you’re Farhan Zaidi and it’s literally your job to consider it.
Will be in the bullpen to start the season, but one of them will be DFA’d during the year
José Álvarez
John Brebbia
Jarlín García
Dominic Leone
Zack Littell
Look, we all know how bullpens work, right? Other than Brebbia, who wasn’t fully back after Tommy John surgery, all of these guys had solid to excellent seasons. They were key cogs in last year’s 107-win team, and reliable members of what turned out (despite a slow April) to be a phenomenal bullpen.
One of them is going to be terrible this year. Just absolute, unmitigated dogshit.
This is not because any of them are inherently bad pitchers, or flukes, or that there’s one thing one of them did that I can point to and say, “The league’s gonna figure that out.” It’s because bullpens are unreliable and you should never expect them to be anything else. That way lies madness. Don’t go mad. Assume the vagaries of baseball will eat at least one reliever alive. It’s a safe bet.
Prospects in a good spot
Kervin Castro
Sean Hjelle
Yunior Marte
Randy Rodriguez
Castro acquitted himself nicely in the majors last year, with an ERA of 0 (that’s good!) in 13.1 innings. He came a long way from the beginning of the season, when he was walking everything under the sun in AAA. By October, he was appearing in the NLDS against the Dodgers, and while he walked 2 in 1.1 innings (specifically walking them in Game 4, which was a big moment in that game since Gabe Kapler had to remove Kervin Castro, his freshest reliever, in the third inning after his starter didn’t finish the second), just being on the roster was a sign of the trust the organization has in him.
As for the others, they all just got added to the 40-man, so the team is not going to get rid of them without a good reason. Now, that good reason could be a trade, and unlike the three prospects in the “Staggering trade offer” section, the trade doesn’t have to blow the team’s doors down. None of these guys are seen as that kind of prospect, but they are solid prospects who can help the team down the road (Hjelle), or possibly next year (Marte and Rodriguez), if they’re on the Doval-Castro path.
Veterans who probably won’t get traded
Evan Longoria
Tommy La Stella
It wasn’t either of their faults that their seasons didn’t turn out the way they hoped. Longoria was having his best season as a Giant before he collided with Brandon Crawford on a ground ball, and he was never the same after that. La Stella certainly didn’t plan on being injured last year, but, to use a term Forrest Gump coined, shit happens.
It’s hard to see much of a trade market for either of these two, and it’s not that likely the Giants would want to trade them. But bad contract swaps can be appealing, and you never want to wholly discount the possibility. That would just be premature!
Things are good
Austin Slater
LaMonte Wade Jr.
Mike Yastrzemski
Slater and Yastrzemski had disappointing years in 2021, but both had bright spots too. Slater’s role was to hit lefties, and he largely did that with an .894 OPS against southpaws, but when the team got all excited about him and tried to get him some at bats against right-handers, it went terribly, to the tune of a .497 OPS. But he certainly has a role on the team.
And so does Yaz! Yastrzemski had a down year by his standards, but still hit 25 homers, so no one’s giving up on him just yet. Most of his issues can be traced to a low BABIP of just .254. He should be fine! Let’s just assume he’ll be fine.
And then there’s LaMonte Wade Jr. You could argue for him in a higher tier, and I would happily say, yes, that’s a good argument, you’re probably right. He had a strong season overall, and he had one of the great clutch seasons that anyone has ever had in a Giants uniform. The first part, the team will hope he repeats. The second part, well, let’s just take it for what it was and enjoy it, all right? It, uh, probably won’t happen like that again.
Doing fine for now
Sammy Long
Curt Casali
Thairo Estrada
The Giants were thrilled to sign Long to a minor league deal last year, and he has tons of potential, and it did not show up in the majors in 2021. That’s not a huge deal, but it could turn into one. Casali is a perfectly fine backup catcher, who the Giants will keep around as long as they don’t have a better one. Estrada had a really nice year as a backup infielder last year.
No one in this group should have any problems, unless he takes a sharp turn downward, which is very possible.
Not doing fine for now
Tyler Beede
Gregory Santos
Steven Duggar
Boy, Beede just missed the bottom tier here. Like Brebbia, he was coming off of Tommy John surgery last year, so his relentlessly poor performance in AAA will not be the final straw for him in the organization. If you remember the reports about Beede in Spring Training 2020, before the world fell apart and whatnot, they were positively glowing. Then he had surgery and reports were still glowing, but because he had become radioactive. The team will want to see if he gets back to the original, good glow.
Look, this could be me being overly pessimistic about Santos. Roger Munter just yesterday gave all sorts of reasons to feel good about him and the season that he could have had without the suspension for PEDs. But he also pointed this out: that 101 MPH fastball? Not as impressive as a 101 MPH fastball should be. Never has been. Santos has a great slider, so it’s not like he’s hopeless, but it just seems like he should be able to do more than he has.
As for Duggar, look, I like Duggar and when he hits, the team takes off. But the word “when” is doing an awful lot of work in that sentence. Duggar had a .767 OPS last year, which is good, but that came with a 30% strikeout rate and a .355 BABIP, which was well above his career norms. Can he succeed long-term in the majors? Well, if we’re being honest here, he only has one option left (I hope I counted that right) so he’s not going to have that long to figure it out.
Again, none of these guys are in immediate danger, I think. But they are barely missing the bottom tier.
Real Ultimate Danger Zone
Caleb Baragar
Hunter Harvey
Mauricio Dubón
Jason Vosler
Jaylin Davis
Austin Dean
Any of these players could be DFA’d as soon as rosters unfreeze. Baragar, Dubón, and Davis have all performed badly enough that they’ve fallen out of favor, with Baragar’s walks and Davis’s strikeouts being the huge red flags. Dubón would probably last longer than either of them because of his defensive versatility, but versatility only takes you so far when you hit .240, don’t walk, and barely have any power.
Vosler has the Enderson Franco Memorial You’re Still On The Roster Because We Haven’t Taken You Off Yet spot, and if you don’t remember Enderson Franco, well, yes, there’s a reason for that. Harvey and Dean are classic Farhan pick-em-up-then-try-to-sneak-em-through-waivers pickups, except he hasn’t done that second part yet, so look out for that.
Those are my tiers of 40-man stickiness. I hope you learned something, or at the very least, read most of the words.