Winter Thoughts (2025-26)

A collection of thoughts on the last 18 months of the Giants organization

Mar 19, 2026

Introduction

This is a look back at the Giants’ 2025 season and the broader direction of the organization as Buster Posey’s first year in charge comes into focus. Some of what happened was encouraging: the Giants made major talent additions, showed a willingness to absorb long-term payroll, and created a few plausible paths toward a stronger roster. But most of this piece is about the things that felt more revealing beneath the surface, draft philosophy, roster construction, player development, organizational process, ownership priorities, and the uneasy sense that the Giants are choosing a riskier organizational path, and that puts a lot on them to prove it works. This is not meant as a condemnation. It is more an attempt to sort through where the Giants may have conviction, where they may have blind spots, and what will actually define this era over the next 18 months.

MLB Draft

In the 2025 MLB Draft, these are the top five bonuses the Giants handed out to their class:

1R - Gavin Kilen - $5.25M
3R - Trevor Cohen - $850K
9R - Reid Worley - $750K
4R - Lorenzo Meola - $655K
17R - Luke Mensik - $485K

Gavin Kilen: I liked a couple of others who were available at the Kilen pick, with RHP Kyson Witherspoon (went 15th for $5M) and SS Kayson Cunningham (18th, $4.6M) being the notable ones. Kilen’s metrics are well rounded for the most part, but nothing stands out. He made a lot of contact, both in the zone and out of the zone, revealing a bit of a lack of selectivity in his approach. He improved from seven walks in 234 PA in his sophomore season with Louisville (3 BB%) to 12% as a junior at Tennessee. It’s a swing designed to hit fastballs hard for extra bases and survive against secondaries. There is pressure on his ability to consistently hit line drives to the gaps, because I don’t see much opportunity for pull-side power here, nor enough raw power to drive balls out to deep LCF to RCF. He had just two extra-base hits in 43 PA in San Jose in his pro debut (health status during that period is not clear). I believe he’s largely seen as a second baseman at the highest level. There isn’t a ton of upside here, but an everyday regular is possible, provided there is enough power to keep the slugging over .400 and enough athleticism to keep the non-bat skills at an above-average level.

Trevor Cohen: Brian Recca on him: “Over the past three years with Rutgers, Cohen has been one of the highest contact hitters in NCAA with a contact rate hovering in the 88-90% range each year.” Interesting player, but a tough profile (AVG-dependent COF/CF). The Giants have to believe there is some projection for power here to give him $850K.

Reid Worley: Really like what I see. Good athleticism, stable on the mound, easy arm action. Feel for spin. I do have concerns about his projection, though. He is 6’2, and I’m not sure he’ll hold up as a SP. I have him mentally in the 18-20 range on the prospect list. Commitment to Kennesaw State.

Luke Mensik: I like him too. Better projection. But I haven’t been able to see a lot of video of him.

Side note on this draft: I saw a lot of “increased CH usage, decreased FB, hitters struggled against CH” in the college SP draft reports. I’m skeptical of improved performance through this adjustment. Amateurs and lower-level pros seem to struggle relatively more against a decent CH than against other decent pitches. Less gap in the majors.

Stuff I was wrong about

I panned the Justin Verlander signing more than halfway through the year, pointing out that there were quite a few pitchers who had better outcomes and came at a cheaper price. But Verlander turned that around with a strong final stretch.

Dominic Smith was a lot more productive than I expected. I did not see why the Giants gave him an opportunity. He had below-average pop in AAA and poor swing decisions. Despite his relatively productive year, he only managed to land a minor league deal this winter.

Player similarity

I’ve been building out a player similarity finder based on swing path, contact quality, and approach. Jung Hoo Lee has two fascinating comps: Geraldo Perdomo and Luis Arraez. Based on video, to align closer with Perdomo, Lee needs to be a bit flatter through the zone while catching balls out front more. That should hopefully lead to more line drives and fewer ground balls. Lee adding some strength to go along with that will help him rack up the doubles and perhaps get to 15 HR. When I was initially building it out, Lee’s closest comp was 2024-25 Arraez, which isn’t great, but Perdomo is an interesting path as well and makes me less concerned about holding onto him and his profile as a corner outfielder.

Drew Gilbert, on the other hand... no one matches up to him well, which is a bit concerning. Tyler Heineman is the closest match. Gilbert has a challenging thing to work on: delay rotation enough so that when the barrel gets to the ball, it’s still on its upward arc. Barrel through the ball instead of across it. I just don’t see an average major league bat here, but with his good defense he can carve out an up-and-down type of profile. I don’t know if McCray will have much of a career, but I think he’s a better bet than Gilbert.

Buster Posey

When I think about Posey’s first year running baseball operations, I land closer to disheartened than encouraged, though not fully at the deep end of the pool. He made two big moves happen with Adames and Devers, and I give him real credit for that. What bothered me was most of the rest. Contrary to the high-profile nature of those moves, they were “easy” in the sense that it was all about absorbing payroll. Once they were comfortable adding that liability, the actual acquisition of the talent wasn’t hard. It showed fortitude to lock in that much payroll for that extended of a period. I respect that a lot. What I didn’t like was most of the rest. The front office struggled to maximize the margins and let multiple obvious gaps fester, and ultimately that was the difference between the playoffs and where they ended up. This offseason is a better picture of what we can expect from this front office going forward in terms of grand offseason plan design. They will patch holes while trying to play a high-variance game with them. They will prioritize moving from a D to a C grade for an everyday player far more than moving from an F to a C for the bullpen. They are willing to part with prospects, but just weren’t in a position to maximize what they had this offseason. That is where the focus will be for the next 18 months: what can they strip from the farm to support the major league team? This is one of the key areas where front office tenures are defined.
The most concerning aspect of Posey’s tenure has been the philosophical design of the organization. From the bits and pieces we see from the outside, there appears to be some shift away from relying on the analytical staff to design the team’s approach to player acquisition and development. The league certainly thinks so in terms of the pitching side of things. Their draft approach with Kilen and Cohen puts them out on a limb. Do they see an edge that others are missing? Or are others not swimming in the same philosophy as the Giants because they know the pitfalls? This will ultimately be the defining thing of this era. Can the Giants build this organization in a manner that is different from the other top organizations and succeed? I hope we get to see where and how they differ, and whether that is paying off. More on this below.
When the Giants got off to a scalding start in 2025, players and staff were eager to credit Posey’s presence for the team’s success. This is an interesting article in retrospect (4/29). Early-season success was attributed to Posey’s “belief,”, “presence,” “patience,” and “transparency,” with players. Easy narrative when winning, but as the season showed, roster talent wins games, not vibes. As an aside, during the struggle period, Mike Krukow said that the team had lost all confidence, they were tight, and were afraid to make mistakes. Amazingly, those terms were used to describe the 2024 team and it was attributed to how the prior FO operated (see above article).
Posey diagnosed the slump after the hot start as being due to a pullback from playing an “aggressive style of baseball,” and he doesn’t think the hot start was a fluke. I think there were more impactful reasons (struggles vs. LHP, 2B, SP depth). I would have liked to see him acknowledge some of those practical realities.
In his first media scrum after taking the reins, Posey made a point to note that the team analysts would be moved away from Mike Murphy’s office, a place of prominence next to Bob Melvin’s office. That seemed like an early signal that, while their voice would still matter, they would not be embedded in the same way they were under the prior front office.
By the end of the year, multiple players said they were lacking in analytics support (NBCS-BA, 9/29). When asked tangentially about that, Posey said: “It’s very dependent on coaching staff. It depends on their willingness to receive the information and how much they want to use it.” I took that as an indication that Melvin’s staff was not delivering what some players wanted. If that was the case, then making analysts less accessible seems like an odd way to structure things. When a team with the Giants’ resources has players saying they are not getting what they need, that should be a story.
The same basic philosophy shows up on the minor league side too. The Giants removed data analysts from being on-site with affiliates and instead centralized them at the Arizona complex, something they have in common with Mike Rizzo’s Nationals. Maybe the org believes that clearer communication channels and a more controlled flow of information outweigh the downside of distance. That is at least a defensible theory. But there is also an obvious cost to taking analysts out of the room. On the major league side, the relocation did not seem to lead to a good outcome. On the minor league side, maybe the staff is better at using analysts remotely, but it is still not the same as having them there in person.
I’m not ready to call this bad, immaterial, or good. I just want to know what the process was. Was this done because the org had a clear philosophy about communication and accountability? Or was it a reaction against the previous regime? Or worse, was it partly aesthetic, a desire to create distance from analysts because of what they symbolize? My concern is that performative philosophy may have started to take precedence over what actually helps players win and develop.
It would not shock me if Posey decides to take a step back from running the day-to-day in the next 18-24 months. I think a change like this would not be dependent on how the team is doing, though poor performance might accelerate it. He has been non-committal about discussing his future beyond the initial term he signed on for. Though he does pretty upbeat in this article.
Interesting nugget on Minasian hire from John Shea. Posey wasn’t really considering him at first, but he was always around, so got embedded that way. Posey values familiarity (Winn, Evans, Berry, Minasian, López, Casali) over perhaps other things.
Posey suggested in reference to Eldridge that they want players “to beat the door down” to get called up to the majors. Why did they not apply that thinking to Whisenhunt? In the seven starts leading up to his debut, his ERA in AAA was 6.00, with not-great peripherals. They burned an option year and probably hurt his trade value, but with what goal? Trevor McDonald was available, and so was Kai-Wei Teng. (I was banging on the table for McDonald all of 2025, by the way. You watch him and can see his path to being useful pretty quickly.)

Organizational Process

Thought this was interesting from Andrew Baggarly. Bold emphasis in response is by me.

With Bob Melvin’s dismissal, it feels like Buster Posey’s influence on the organization is finally front and center. Given that Melvin managed through a roster teardown at the deadline, I’m curious what the internal indictment really was. Was this about results, or about alignment with Posey’s vision for the next phase of the franchise? And what might this decision signal about the kind of offseason strategy Posey plans to pursue? — Jack H.
I’ll start with this. I don’t believe that Melvin was scapegoated the way managers often are when they get fired at the end of a disappointing season. The Giants didn’t finish with an 81-81 record because of Melvin or in spite of him. And yes, there’s an element of unfairness here because the Giants sold at the deadline (although “roster teardown” isn’t the characterization I’d use). But on balance, especially after the Devers trade, it’s fair to say that the Giants should have won more games than they did. When that happens, the manager is usually held accountable.
But I think there’s more to it than that. When the Giants hired Melvin, he was what ownership felt the franchise needed after so many fans were turned off by the lack of roster and lineup continuity under Gabe Kapler: a traditional manager with name recognition and a steady hand at the wheel. Obviously, Posey wants something different now. I think that’s as much a reflection on changes in the game and industry as it is a reflection on what Posey values.

My read of Baggarly’s framing is that ownership pushed the prior front office toward Bob Melvin. If that is true, it says a lot about how the Giants have been operating. It suggests that, rather than one coherent baseball operations process, there have been multiple power centers shaping major decisions. That is usually not how stable organizations work.

The timeline is what makes it stand out. First, ownership appears to step into baseball ops by steering the organization toward Melvin, a move that also represented a philosophical shift away from how Zaidi operated. The staff hires that followed also did not feel especially Zaidi-coded; it is hard to imagine him landing on Price, Christenson, or Williams. Posey’s exact role in that phase is unclear.

Then ownership is reported to have intervened again on Chapman’s contract structure. To be fair, that part is not abnormal in isolation. Ownership often gets involved in big-money commitments. But then an ownership figure literally becomes POBO. After that, Posey extends Melvin in what looked, from the outside, like an attempt to jolt the club (throw shit against the wall). Then he fires him in order to hire “his” guy, except Melvin may also have partly been “his” guy, or at least the ownership group’s compromise choice. That is a lot of organizational flailing in a short window.

What makes this troubling is not any one move by itself. It is the cumulative picture. Ownership appears to backseat-drive major baseball decisions, the organization lurches from one philosophy to another, and when it does not work, it all gets flattened into normal baseball churn. Maybe the long-term impact is limited. But if that is roughly how it played out, it is bad process. And bad process is exactly the kind of thing that gets covered up when an ownership group can always point to the next front office, the next manager, or the next offseason as the fresh start.

Tony Vitello

There is no doubt that Vitello is an unexpected and bold choice for manager. I won’t rehash the million angles people have already taken with him. I think we will just have to wait and see how it goes. I’m probably on the side that is a bit more wary than immediately convinced. The roles are just so different between college and MLB that I wonder if he has the soft skills for it. Saying a lot of words to mean nothing is not a soft skill to me. I will comment on one specific thing, from a Baggarly article:

In September, it was notable that Posey made an unscheduled trip to join the Giants for a series at Coors Field while Vitello happened to be there visiting four of his former players. Vitello, speaking on a podcast with Youth.inc released on Tuesday, confirmed that he spoke with “a GM” during that visit and that, within their conversation, they lamented the current state of the game.
“I think everyone is suffering the consequences all the way up to the big leagues where guys are super skilled, but there’s less development, less coaching, less accountability and therefore less understanding of how to actually play the game to win,” Vitello told Youth.inc. “And it starts all the way, trickle-down effect.”
Posey has made many similar remarks since taking over as the Giants’ top baseball official 12 months ago, extolling the value of players who develop the ability to compete along with physical skills like bat speed and spin rate.

I’d be interested to see if there’s empirical backing for the claim that current players are less developed, less accountable, or less attuned to the nuances of the game. If the argument is that current pros are less detail-oriented or make more mental mistakes than players of the past, I’m not convinced. This is a possible failing in resisting the human urge to fall into easy narratives. Just because players are reaching the majors faster and are more skilled doesn’t mean something crucial was sacrificed in the process. If a TOOTBLAN was observed, that doesn’t mean the entire generation is flawed, etc. This is about what Posey believes is important for player development and what should be prioritized within it. If he believes players need to focus on different priorities than where the rest of the top teams are, that will have ramifications, especially if the basis is confirmation bias.

Ownership Group

Sportico pegs the Giants being worth $4.4B. The Giants sold 10% to SSP for roughly $400M? And they sold another 1%-2% to Richard Chaifetz. How much went into the ballpark vs non-Giants ventures? Baggarly reporting:

But private equity tends to take a different view, and the Giants sold 10 percent of the team to Sixth Street Partners in March. While announcing the transaction, the Giants said the organization would use the cash to fund stadium upgrades and other facilities, including the Mission Rock development in which the Giants are partners in restaurants and other ventures. Private equity investors are walled off from making cash-flow decisions, according to comments that Chicago Cubs Chairman Tom Ricketts made to The Athletic in January. But the Giants might be concerned that taking substantial operational losses on paper would fail to demonstrate responsible corporate governance so soon after entering their partnership with Sixth Street. And that’s a particular concern when the revenue-generating picture is far from clear.

The ownership group unlocked nearly half a billion dollars in cash flow for ballpark and real estate ventures by selling shares of the Giants asset. Then, in the name of presenting “good governance” to the new ownership partners, they appear to have imposed financial limits on spending for the very asset that generated that cash for the legacy owners in the first place. That is a form of harvesting the baseball operation to support other wealth-generating ventures.

The money raised from selling part of the team could have been used to reinforce payroll for the rest of the decade. That would have meant putting the value extracted from the franchise back into the franchise and back into the fanbase. Instead, ownership has spent its time leaking complaints through every publication about the $17M check they had to cut for Blake Snell in 2026. Maybe next they can grumble about the larger bonus pool that comes with picking fourth in this year’s draft.

There are a lot of wealthy people in this ownership group. My plea to them is simple: do everything possible to be better than the Dodgers. Spend your wealth. You cannot take it with you.

2025 trade deadline

Rogers trade return was worse than Doval’s: The Rogers trade, at a high level, was two 40 FV guys and a low-leverage RP. About okay in quality for two months of a reliever. The Mets cleared out their 40-man roster of fringe big leaguers. Just Carlos De La Rosa alone was better than anyone in this package.

Camilo Doval return thoughts: Rodriguez is a slap hitter with below-average pop and interesting versatility. Harber has top-notch power that hasn’t fully shown up in games, was an NDFA in ’24, can stick at 3B, likely COF in the Giants system. Vrieling has a 93-94 FB, decent slider, okay control. De La Rosa is an interesting DSL arm: 91-94 FB, sweeping high-spin CB. One industry source texted me when the trade happened that their team had De La Rosa as the best arm in the DSL this year. That might be where the real value is in this trade. FB has hit 97, still figuring out breaking ball shapes, but the raw spin is there. Long road, but the ability to start is there. He has an interesting old-school 11-5 CB that will get whiffs at the lower levels. I preferred what COL got for Jake Bird, but that might not have been on the table for Doval.

Yunior Marte will be an interesting development project. Big guy, 93-95 FB with a vertical slider that he manipulates, splitter that is rough but when he lands it gets ugly swings. RP risk. Hadn’t pitched much before his 19 starts this year in A-ball.

Rule 5

Spencer Miles being taken was not surprising, though Minasian said it was “a little bit,” given his lack of innings. Guys who get in the zone with three quality pitches are going to be valued, no matter the injury history or experience. Let’s see if he sticks here in the final week of spring training. I won’t read too much into it, but it should not have been surprising at all.

Giants see Daniel Susac as a plus defender behind the plate. A big claim. BA had a different take on him entering 2025. He’s having a solid camp, so he likely will win the backup job. Philosophically, I would rather have a decent-framing vet as the backup, or someone with a great deal of versatility like Jesus Rodriguez. Susac, I guess, offers a bit of power from the right side. I thought Miguel Caraballo was interesting, so nice get by Minnesota.

Offseason moves

My main issue with the offseason is that the Giants addressed needs without really solving them. A lot of these moves are defensible in isolation, but taken together they feel like a roster built on too many medium-confidence bets. But that was largely borne out of the organization’s financial limitations and the big swings already taken by the front office.

I think this is shaping up to be an 84-85 win team, will that be enough? A playoff spot will come down to the starting pitch depth and who “arrives” on the reliever side. I think the FO is understimating the complete lack of depth behind the five starters (plus McDonald). I don’t have belief in anyone among the depth group to pitch in 40-50 decent innings. I wish they had put a few more resources into landing RP candidates on NRI deals. But it feels like every team has some level of the same strategy as the Giants, so there is a lot of competition for the interesting arms.

Jason Foley: Foley had a 104 DRA- in 2024, didn’t make the Opening Day roster in 2025, then had shoulder surgery. Power sinker/slider combo. Good in 2022-23. Not sure about giving him a major league deal, but whatever I guess.
Adrian Houser: Houser is another sinker/slider guy, with a change too. Guess the Giants want to utilize their strong-ish infield defense (we’ll see how Arraez at 2B plays out). I don’t mind the Houser signing. He’s fine. Didn’t think he would get 2/22, but he’s acceptable as the second SP need for this offseason.
Gregory Santos: Old friend! Another power sinker/slider guy. Liked this pickup on a minor league deal.
Tyler Mahle: Mahle had a 109 DRA- season in 2025 and has struggled to stay healthy the last two years, both ending with shoulder injuries (rotator cuff strain in 2025). Houser’s 125 IP in 2025 were his highest of the last four seasons. They did not exactly build a quality 25+ start rotation this offseason. The Giants currently do not have a young possible SP (Birdsong-injured, Seymour, McDonald, Whisenhunt, Tidwell, Winn) who projects to be average or better in 2026 by ZiPS. At the moment, that’s the group the Giants are counting on to support the Roupp/Houser/Mahle group. The Giants will have their own projections for this pitching staff that guide some of their belief in the depth, plus the new coaching ecosystem at the higher levels. But the public-side baseline expectation should be that this is a bottom-5-to-10 group. That leaves a lot for this org to prove.
Harrison Bader: Bader is fine. But paying for a 90 wRC+ bat with good CF defense is not great for a contending org. Good teams look to upgrade that; the Giants are shelling out in FA for it. Indictment of where the org is. The bottom could fall out on the bat, and then you have an expensive defensive replacement. Bader (career) vs. RHP: 92 wRC+. 2024-25 vs. LHP: 82 wRC+. An unfair way to slice it (better vs. RHP the last two years, better vs. LHP over career), but this guy, with slightly declining defense (above average rather than good/elite), is not a starter or a guy you want in a significant role. So a lot comes down to how real the offensive production from 2025 is, because if it’s not real, is he actually that much more valuable than Gilbert?
Luis Arraez: This was the second most interesting move in terms of variance after the Tony Vitello hire. I don’t get it for a few reasons, but if it plays out their way, there is a realistic path to this looking fine. The BABIP gods could shine on him this year, and maybe he can be 20% better than the disastrous defense folks are expecting out of him at 2B. I think fans could get tired of him really quickly if that doesn’t happen. His ABs are hard to watch when he takes good pitches in the zone and swings at chase pitches out of the zone. Sure, he won’t strike out a whole lot, but I’m not enamored by lazy line drives.
CJ Abrams rumored trade: I peg the rumored package of Gonzalez+Davidson+Level+Bresnahan+Whisenhunt at ~15 WAR in value. Abrams has three years of control left. Might get 9-10 WAR out of him, 12 at the high end. So, accounting for $20M/3y, 7-10 surplus WAR. Suggested trade is a major overpay on paper, in my opinion. The exact trade wasn’t spelled out, just that the above might not have been enough. I find that hard to believe. Even discounting each prospect by half a grade and assuming Abrams is a 4-win guy makes the trade about even. I don’t get it. Abrams isn’t worth giving up that much. His SS defense is bad enough that he is probably average at 2B. The bat projects only slightly above average, good runner. Lots of smoke around makeup. Nats (Gore/Abrams/Young) fit SF needs and can accept a high-risk mix as return, so talks make sense, but not this report. I think either Gonzalez for Abrams or Davidson+Level+Whisenhunt is a “fair” trade. I wouldn’t do the former and probably not the latter, but that’s just how I believe prospects are valued. I wouldn’t do the above trade even if Jacob Young were included.
My thought for the offseason was that the Giants needed one above-average SP, and I narrowed it down to 10. Thought the sweet spot was in the Ryan-Lodolo area of this group: Skubal, Luzardo, Ryan, Soriano, Rasmussen, Cabrera, Lodolo, deGrom, Baz, Gore. Lodolo would’ve been a good fit in terms of potential cost, upside, salary, and two years of control at around 10-12M total, projected ~5 WAR. My guess at the cost was Level+Matos, or Ramos+. Ryan is a tier above Lodolo. Probably can get 7 WAR out of him, but the price would have been steep. Level+Kilen+Bresnahan at the minimum, I think. deGrom works, but wouldn’t leave much payroll space for any other major moves in FA (unless Texas eats, also NTC). Baz was a fine get by Baltimore, but for the Giants he is more of a year-two-of-a-pitching-group acquisition rather than year one. Not into Gore or Cabrera, so I wasn’t too bothered by the Giants not being in on either.
I have liked a Luis Matos for Bryce Elder swap. The Giants have an opportunity to get more out of Elder. He wasn’t in Atlanta’s rotation plans until a spate of injuries, and he’s out of options. Maybe they are tired of him, and Matos might be better than Eli White? I don’t know. Getting Elder mechanically consistent would go a long way in making him useful. That start he had against the Giants in 2025 was impressive. He looks like a contributor when he is in a flow. Good project for the new pitching brain trust.
If Casey Schmitt is moved, I would try to add to the AAA SP depth. Pittsburgh could use an upgrade at 3B. Triolo hasn’t done a whole lot with the bat, though defense is quite good. Schmitt is a fit for them. They have some SP depth, but not sure who would be a fair target. Maybe Thomas Harrington? Throws strikes with a mediocre mix.
I like OF/2B Angel Martínez from Cleveland. Nearly 500 PA last year, struggled quite a bit with the bat, and wasn’t good in CF, okay at 2B. So what’s to like about him? Just 24, hit LHP very well, positional versatility, one option. Better approach is an opportunity.
A couple of guys who have fallen off that I liked as targets this offseason: Jordan Walker and Kumar Rocker. I can’t imagine the price tag would be too hefty on either.
A utility player target I like is Maximo Acosta (Miami). Interesting offensive profile. Great swing decisions, just enough thump and contact, could be more aggressive, okay at SS. FG had him at 40 FV in July, so maybe attainable. My past obsessions: 2023: Gabriel Arias. 2024: Edmundo Sosa and Romy Gonzalez.

Quick Hits

Adames’ OAA improvement over the course of 2025 was pretty impressive. Not sure what was going on with him early in the year, but the turnaround was very important. Him trending toward poor at SS in year one of a long-term deal would have been quite concerning for the Giants.

PECOTA and ZiPS projected the Giants to be a 78-82 win team in 2025. Maybe add 1-2 with Devers. That’s about where they ended up last year. Not a narratively smooth path to get there, but nothing really about the season’s result was unexpected.

I went through my own process of who the manager/coaches combinations should/could be, just dumping that here:

Manager candidate ranking based mostly on puff pieces:

Scott Servais - 2016-24 SEA
Skip Schumaker - 2023 NL MOTY. Unlikely
Rodney Linares - TB bench coach
Craig Albernaz - CLE bench coach, withdrew from MIA/CHW consideration in ’24
Ryan Flaherty
Don Kelly
Daniel Descalso

Pitching coach shortlist (head, asst, BP) before the Giants made their hires: Max Weiner - Texas PC, Matt Hobbs - Arkansas PC, Matt Pierpont - STL Dir. of Pitching, Connor McGuiness - LAD Asst. PC, Justin Lehr - TOR MiLB Pitching Director, Jarred Hughes - LAA Coord. of Pitching Analysis, Spenser Davis - SVU PC, Luis Pino - SF ACL PC, Joe Torres - CLE Asst. PC. Some of these guys make > avg MLB pitching coach. Hobbs has a long-time relationship with Vitello. Trent Blank (SEA) is a great candidate, but I doubt he leaves the role he is in.

Hitting coach list: I had Hunter Mense (TOR) on my shortlist, so nice pickup there. The rest of the list: Brenton Del Chiaro (MIL Asst. Dir. of PD), Jason Ochart (BOS Dir. of Hitting Dev), Dillon Lawson (BOS Asst. HC), Aaron Bates (LAD Co-HC), Matt Hague (PIT HC), Michael Brdar (DET Co-HC).

Dugout calling games

In pursuit of gaining every edge possible, I wonder if the Giants will try to call games from the dugout this season. There has been a bit of reporting on this during the spring. The Giants sounded like they were considering it early on, but seem to have backed off the idea as we head into the year. It should have a benefit to some extent. Possibly controversial, unfounded opinion based on my watching games, not data: I don’t think Patrick Bailey is a very good game caller. Hard to know exactly who’s calling pitches, but I imagine Bailey handles a lot of it. My read is based on high-leverage situations: he gets too clever, and guys end up getting beat with their non-best pitch. Execution isn’t on him, but you don’t want to lose a matchup with your C pitch.

Tom Murphy doesn’t have good things to say about how the Giants handled his injury. Not sure why a front office wouldn’t want to maintain lines of communication with a player.

Remember some guys

Tyler Rogers and Mike Yastrzemski were good Giants, and I will remember them fondly when I think of this era. Rogers should’ve made more money than he will. The Giants didn’t give Rogers an opportunity despite nearly 150 innings in AAA with an ERA around 2 in 2017-18. He didn’t get a shot at the majors until a new regime took over. In a similar vein, Baltimore sat on Yaz for around 1,200 PA in AAA over three seasons before the Giants acquired him and gave him a crack at the majors. 12.5 fWAR for the Giants.

Jairo Pomares was released by the Giants in July 2025 and didn’t catch on anywhere in affiliated ball. His 2021 50-game stint with SJ was one of the most dominant performances I’ve seen out of a Giants minor leaguer. What is the lesson here? Injuries, proximity, age vs. level, athleticism — hard to parse out as an outsider.

Bat speed

I think the Savant bat-speed metric is useful in establishing archetypes for players or as a signal of something after an injury, but as presented it’s too limited to take too seriously. There is some conversation around Bryce Eldridge’s bat speed and it being a bit below average in his limited stint in the majors. I don’t think it really matters much because we don’t know the weight of the bat, and this metric does not adjust for the type of pitches and locations at which a batter swings.

Rafael Devers had a notable dip in bat speed in July/August 2024 and hasn’t bounced back. He was dealing with shoulder issues on both sides in 2024, including an injury to his right shoulder in late July. August 2024 - 2025: 122 wRC+, that’s a decent bit lower than 2023 through July 2024 at 141 wRC+.

P.S. I am trying to put together a top 80 Giants prospects list before minor league season kicks off soon. We’ll see if that happens.
My family and I will be at Giants spring training on Friday (Section 130) and Saturday (Section 305). Come by and say hello!

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