Which former Giants could get rings this year?
A question I waited to ask until I could cut my work in half
The playoffs are down to the last two rounds now. Four teams remaining! Two league champions! Only one Major League champion! Outstanding.
It is now time to survey each team to find out what Giants connections they have, so that we can figure out how to properly root for each team. Many of these players will not be on the playoff roster. Some of them will not even be with the organization anymore. The important thing is this: They were with that organization at some point this year, so it counts. The other important thing is this: this is content for you to consume.
Yankees: Wandy Peralta, Rob Brantly, Hensley Meulens
Hensley Meulens has three rings, you know. That’s more World Series rings than I have, if I’m being honest.
Wandy Peralta has zero rings, but he was the main piece in the trade that brought the Giants Mike Tauchman last year. This means that, since Tauchman robbed two balls that would have been game-winning homers in the middle of a division race that the Giants won by one game, Peralta singlehandedly won the Giants the 2021 NL West title. You can double check my math if you want, but I think it’s rock solid.
Rob Brantly was briefly a teammate of Peralta’s on the 2020 Giants. I could go on about him, but I think we’ve all heard the dozens of Rob Brantly stories that are unavoidable every time we turn on a baseball game. It’s like, guys! We’ve heard it! Find some new material.
Astros: Mauricio Dubon, Will Smith, Dusty Baker, Erick Threets???
Yeah, yeah, we’ll get to the other guys later. We’ll get to the fan favorite who got traded this year, and the Willie Mac Award winner, and the manager who spent a decade leading the Giants. But first, we have to talk about Giants legend Erick Threets.
Erick Threets is currently the Astros’ Florida Complex Pitching League coach, and while you wouldn’t think that would merit his inclusion here, well, it’s listed on the Astros website so it counts. Threets was a Giants farm product, drafted in 2000, who made his major league debut in 2007. Known as a hard thrower with poor control, he pitched 12.1 innings for the Giants, and in those innings he struck out 7 and walked 12. It is delightful that he is a coach. Delgihtful.
As for the other three, I mean, we all know them, right? Mauricio Dubon is the very pleasant young man from Honduras who isn’t a good hitter and makes many a boneheaded mistake (With the Astros, Dubon hit .208/254/.294, by the way. Will Smith is a good reliever who the Giants should have traded at the deadline in 2019, but they chose not to, and then the team kept being bad and Smith left to make more money elsewhere.
Dusty Baker is a wonderful person who is almost enough to get me to root for the Astros. I immediately find myself rationalizing, “Yeah, they cheated, but it was against the Dodgers and Yankees, and who likes them?
Padres: Pierce Johnson, Matt Williams
Pierce Johnson appeared in 37 games for the Giants in 2019, and if I’m remembering right, threw baseballs to the catcher in most if not all of those games.
Matt Williams, San Diego’s third base coach, is a Giants legend, both for his many impressive accomplishments on the field and for taking Jordan Zimmermann out of the game with one out remaining. Thanks, Matt! Still appreciate it!
Phillies: Zack Wheeler, Tyler Cyr, Michael Plassmeyer1, Sam Coonrod2
Wheeler is one of the best pitchers in the game, and as he showed in NLCS Game 1, he is always ready to go out and dominate any lineup, no matter how good. If the Giants had a do-over on that Carlos Beltran trade, would they take it? It’s hard to tell. I mean, Beltran was pretty good for those two months.
Cyr kicked around the upper levels of the minors for a few years as a reliever, and I always thought he had an outside shot of making the major league roster since he was generally very effective. That ended in 2021, as Cyr struggled quite a bit in Sacramento, and he became a minor league free agent at the end of the year, eventually signing with Philadelphia (for whom he made one poor appearance) and then eventually finding his way to the A’s. He’s from Fremont, so that all worked out pretty well for him.
I saw Michael Plassmeyer pitch several times for the River Cats this year. He always seemed like he should have been good, but he also always got lit up. Despite that, he pitched 7.1 reasonably effective innings for the Phillies over two games.
Sam Coonrod did not pitch well as a Giant, had a very nice year in 2021 for the Phillies, and is back to not pitching well. At least it wasn’t personal.
So, after all that, which is the LCS team with the best Giants connection? Unfortunately, the answer has to be the Astros. The cheatin’, cheatin’ Astros. Their manager was an iconic Giants manager. Mauricio Dubon was popular with Giants fans, and remains popular presumably because they’re not watching him hit very often. Will Smith is generally well regarded, and for a former reliever who didn’t win three World Series, that’s as good as it gets. Erick Threets is also there, in a way.
Add it all up, and you get a team that you’ll be happy to root for begrudgingly accept as champions because of all the old pals who are hanging around. It’s still kinda gross to want the Astros to win. But maybe this makes it less gross?
No, probably not. They’ve still got cheater stench all over them. Oh well. Go Dusty.
Minor leagues only with the Giants for all three
It would have been nice if he was also minor leagues only
Yep, gotta be the Astros. Nice content!
This exercise will undoubtedly be more awkward next year when Giant legend Zack Littell is a late inning shutdown reliever for the Dodgers in the NLCS.