Gabe Kapler’s recruiting process to bring infielder Jason Vosler to the Giants sounded simple enough: A phone call.
This phone call, however, didn’t have Kapler talking about baseball. As a matter of fact, in the first 15 minutes of the call, nothing about the sport was mentioned. That was a big part as to why the infielder wanted to sign with San Francisco.
“I didn’t really know what to expect either,” Vosler told NBC Sports Bay Area on "Balk Talk" this week. “[Gabe and I] kind of started off the first half of the call -- the first 10-15 minutes of the call, we didn’t even really talk baseball, just introduced each other. We ended up talking a little baseball, but not in the sense of me coming to the Giants, it was more like, ‘What parks did you like playing? How was college baseball?’ stuff like that -- just really getting to know each other.”
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SIGN UP HERE Vosler signed a one-year, major league contract with the Giants on Nov. 10. He looks to fit in perfectly serving as a possible backup role behind any of the infielders -- mainly third baseman Evan Longoria. Vosler also got a little outfield experience during his time with the San Diego Padres organization at the alternative training site this past season.
He’s happy to play anywhere, however.
“It seemed like [the Giants] really had done their homework and done their research and they knew a lot about me and specific things they wanted to improve with my game that they think could take me to the next level and just the aggressiveness of all that research worked into it,” Vosler said. “And being able to kind of show me what they put into it -- really it swayed me big time, almost immediately.”
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Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi knew in order to get Vosler, a major-league deal had to be offered. He felt comfortable with that knowing Vosler had a big chance of making the Opening Day roster.
The Giants were one of the first teams to be in contact with Vosler’s agent once free agency opened up.
“It seemed like the perfect fit for me,” Vosler said.