Five Giants newcomers who could make the Opening Day roster

Share

The Giants' Opening Day roster in 2020 included Rob Brantly, Joe McCarthy and Rico Garcia. A year earlier, Erik Kratz, Gerardo Parra, Connor Joe, Michael Reed and Travis Bergen were among those standing on the third base line at Petco Park before the season opener.For as much offseason time as we spend analyzing camp competitions and strengths and weaknesses, there are always things you don't see coming during spring training. Every Opening Day roster features players most fans weren't familiar with six weeks earlier, and this season will be no exception.The Giants have a 26-man roster to fill and you don't have to work hard right now to get to 24 or 25 of those names. But we know there will be surprises and new faces in the dugout, so as the Giants kick off camp Wednesday at Scottsdale Stadium, here are five who have never suited up in the orange and black in the big leagues, but just might be on that flight to Seattle at the end of March.

5 photos
1/5

The Giants seem set in the outfield, but their current five-man group -- Mike Yastrzemski, Alex Dickerson, Mauricio Dubon, Austin Slater and Darin Ruf -- does leave a minor gap. While Yastrzemski and Slater can play center field if needed, both are better suited for corners, and in an ideal world the Giants would have a left-handed hitter who can share center field with Dubon and be a plus out there defensively.

Wade Jr. was added late in the offseason, but he checks off a lot of boxes. He's a young left-handed hitter with a .389 career OBP in the minors and has experience in all three outfield spots. What the Giants need to find out this spring is just how good he is in center. 

"I've talked to a lot of people who have worked with LaMonte. They feel like he can play all three outfield positions for us," manager Gabe Kapler said. "He probably performs best at one of the corners and we'll work hard to find out early on where his best position is, but also to give him all the tools necessary to play all three if we can."

Wade Jr. has a minor league option remaining, so it seems more likely he'll be a guy who makes frequent trips from Sacramento to San Francisco. But he'll enter camp as an option if the Giants have an outfielder go down, or if they decide they need a different profile added to their current group. 

2/5

The Giants liked the former Padres prospect enough that they gave him a big league deal on Nov. 10, and at the time he fit a need. President of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi noted that Vosler had a history of hitting for power and average and filled defensive holes. Vosler has three straight 20-homer seasons in the minors and had a .367 OBP in 2019. 

"He does fit our roster really well as a left-handed infield bat who can play first, second and third," Zaidi said back then. 

Well, so did Tommy La Stella, the biggest addition of the offseason. With La Stella signed to a three-year deal, the Giants don't have a spot for Vosler right now. What they do have is an infield full of guys in their thirties, and if any of them go down in the spring, Vosler is next in line. It helps his cause quite a bit that he's already on the 40-man roster. 

3/5

You could have chosen either Doval or Kervin Castro here, but Doval gets the edge right now because he spent all of last summer at the alternate site and was an option to be called up late in the season. The 23-year-old has averaged 12.8 strikeouts-per-nine in the minors, although he hasn't pitched above A-ball yet.

Doval has a fastball that hits triple-digits and a hard slider, and Kapler mentioned him as a standout in bullpen sessions at Scottsdale Stadium last week. He called him "athletic and loose and really whippy on the mound."

"The biggest key is being in the zone," Kapler said. "He's not the type of pitcher, given his stuff, that has to live on the corners or the top or the bottom rail. He just has to be in the zone and put hitters on the defensive."

Doval and Castro -- who got a Keith Foulke comp from Kapler -- look like good bets to join the bullpen at some point this season, but the Giants have so many veteran relievers in the mix now that they don't need to push either one. Still, guys who throw 100 with a good breaking ball can push past others in a hurry. 

4/5

The Giants added four Rule 5 players in Zaidi's first two offseasons in charge and three of them saw big league time, which wasn't a surprise given the roster he took over. They're much deeper now but still jumped on Nuñez in December's draft, adding a 24-year-old who primarily was a starter in the Mets organization but now will move to the bullpen. Nuñez was a standout in the instructional league, hitting 97 mph. 

"He's always been a plus strike-thrower," general manager Scott Harris said after the draft. "(Instructs) increased our confidence in the playability of his fastball, especially up in the zone. I think we also expect some increased power to his secondary weapons as he transitions from the rotation to the bullpen."

The bullpen should be a lot better than it was when Travis Bergen and Dany Jimenez got their cameos, but the Giants knew that in December and still took a shot on Nuñez. If he shows any promise, expect them to try and sneak him on as the roster's 26th man, which they have to do if they want to keep his rights.

5/5

You could roll a baseball to any corner of the clubhouse in Scottsdale Stadium and find the locker of a right-hander with some big league time hoping to make this team as a non-roster invitee. The Giants had a big initial group of NRIs that included Leone and Silvino Bracho, and since have added James Sherfy, Zack Littell, Nick Tropeano and Jay Jackson. 

The Giants smartly bought a bunch of bullpen lottery tickets, knowing they'll need the depth in Triple-A, at the very least, and might hit on someone who has a breakout season basically for free. We'll go with Leone as the frontrunner right now simply because he has so much big league experience -- 241 appearances over seven seasons -- and already has had the kind of season this front office is hoping to discover. He spent 2017 with the Blue Jays, posting a 2.56 ERA and 2.94 FIP in 65 appearances with 10.4 K/9. 

Whether it's Leone or one of those other guys, the odds are pretty high that on Opening Day you're looking at a non-roster invitee who pitched his way into the bullpen. 

Contact Us