The Giants announced to reporters, including Maria I. Guardado of MLB.com, a series of roster moves prior to tonight’s game. Trade acquisition J.D. Davis has been activated, while outfielder Bryce Johnson has had his contract selected. Left-hander Sam Long and infielder Jason Vosler were optioned to make room on the active roster. The club already had an opening on the 40-man roster, so no corresponding move will be required for Johnson’s addition.
Johnson, 26, was selected by the Giants in the sixth round of the 2017 draft. This is his first selection to an MLB roster and he will be making his major league debut whenever he gets into a game. As pointed out by Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area (Twitter links), the Giants have been trying to find ways to improve their defense and Johnson is a glove-first center fielder. The Giants as a whole have a -36 Defensive Runs Saved on the year, putting them 29th in the majors in that regard. Their -29 Outs Above Average is also second-last. Their -29 Ultimate Zone Rating is even worse, coming in dead last. Johnson can hopefully give them a boost in that department.
Johnson has spent the entire year in Triple-A, playing 74 games and hitting .283/.352/.397 for a wRC+ of 91. He’s already stolen 24 bases on the year, something he has a penchant for, swiping at least that many bags in each season since he was drafted.
It seems that speed and defense might be the highlights of his game, with his bat a little less exciting. However, as Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle points out, there might be platoon opportunities. Though he’s a switch-hitter, Johnson has much better results this year against lefties. He has a .361/.446/.569 line against southpaws but a .249/.309/.321 on the flip side. The Giants have three lefty hitters in their outfield mix right now in Mike Yastrzemski, LaMonte Wade Jr. and Luis Gonzalez, which could allow the club to figure out ways to maximize Johnson’s efforts.
Johnson has zero pop, but he’s a switch hitter who gets on base, has great speed and steals bases. Looks like a leadoff hitter, which the Giants certainly need.
The San Francisco Giants. LOL
How many games under .500 are they ?
With the Dodgers and the Mighty Padres This franchise is Buried in the NL West for the next 3-5 years
Your team has never won a World Series lol, funny how big your ego is
That TGwynn19 is a troll account. He’s actually a Yankee fan who gets his jollies on SF Giant boards. Sad but true.
@notTony, after your incessant trolling last year, you were wrong ALL year long. Now that you’re right, yea, the giants suck…..what joy is there in remaining such a dick?
Until Zaidi gets aggressive and gets real players – players other teams fear – or Zaidi is fired the Giants future competitiveness is only going to get worse. Giants fans have been betrayed by Zaidi.
Division rival Padres welcomed Soto today, and the Giants welcome Bryce friggin Johnson….Pain
Johnson been in AAA all season. Why now? Sounds like another desperate move by Zaidi.
Why?? Because he’s the GM of a baseball team and there’s a third of the season left to play. It doesn’t appear that this season is headed anywhere special so it’s time to see what they have in the AAA or even AA ranks
Knee jerk reaction to recent poor outfield play
Honest question, you think the Giants regret not going after Carlos Correa? I know Crawford plays SS, but Correa could have been a nice young piece to build around, without losing the prospects.
Just wondering…
I looks like a bad decision once Correa wasn’t getting a mega deal last offseason. Crawford would likely have accepted a move to 2B.
This of course assumes the Giants could have signed Correa.
agreed that Correa would have been a great building block, but I think they’re all in on Luciano as their future SS – the long-term commitment requirement would get in the way. And Zaidi’s first inclination seems to be to build from within and save the dollars for a Rodon type of signing when needed
From what I heard, it sounds like Luciano may be their future 3b because of his growth.
Not really sure though..
Correa will probably be once again a free agent if he opts out. Not having a great season but he has been hurt. Let’s not forget Crawford’s 2001 season. He was super. Yes, you could have anticipated his decline but he had earned our trust. While many fans are ranting about the past off-season, do you think any of the free agents would have made a big difference? They are not doing that well. This off-season is going to be the one where we will have to spend. We need to probably replace the entire infield.
jints1:
I agree. Everyone knew there’d be some regression from Crawford, but I don’t think anyone expected him to follow up his career best season, with his career worst. I didn’t see a lot of negative comments when he was extended.
Don’t want any Houston players caught up in the cheating scandal.
They traded a glove first center fielder in Steven Duggar, Johnson sounds similar.
This is my 60th year of rooting for the Giants and this season and lack of spending is down right being cheap and inconsiderate of the fan base. I’ve backed Zaidi up until now, now I have lost faith in Zaidi & the ownership group starting with Mr. Charles Johnson, who could be related to the Oakland A’s cheap ass owner Mr. Fisher. Both men need to get out of the baseball business and sell to someone that makes the team and fans first priority.
Duggar was a glove-only CF. Not sure if Johnson will be better at getting on base, but it will be pretty tough for him to be worse. Also two years younger and better speed.
Honestly, there’s plenty to complain about this season, but this particular move at this time is one that probably makes the ML team better.
I’m done with Kapler too… like Carlos Rodon said, somebody needs to get some fire and get mad about this goddamn losing streak.
The Giants obviously aren’t in the WS hunt but they ARE better than this!
Bases loaded TWICE last night in a winnable game & they piss it away
Fire Zaidi, Harris and Kapler
Lol, ok. Then what?
talking baseball:
I guess you haven’t looked at Duggar’s numbers in Tex. He isn’t even on the Rangers ML roster, and he hit .176/.263/.176 with a 30 OPS+, when he was.
And it’s not like FZ simply replaced Duggar with Johnson. Duggar was out of options and the Giants were in a roster crunch. FZ might have wanted to keep Duggar, all things being equal, but the situation dictated otherwise.
If FZ had been able to see into the future, maybe he does things differently. But, I don’t remember a huge amount of disagreement when Duggar was traded for Willie Calhoun and cash.
Aww, Vosler was doing so well I thought they had another baby Yaz breakout…..
I’m glad to see Bryce Johnson finally get a chance to play in the majors. He’s played well for two very bad Sacramento River Cats teams.
In my opinion these moves are nothing more than what the Giants do every season under Zaidi-cycle through the 40-man roster and 40-adjacent players to see who’s worth protecting ahead of the rule V draft. Just methodical roster manipulation.
I thought I saw an Alex Pavlovic tweet a week or more before the trade deadline that the Giants were interested in Szapucki. Perhaps J.D Davis was a throw-in to offset some of Darin Ruf’s salary ? If so then Davis may be just as susceptible to being DFA as Johnson
Vosler is changing his first name to Duncan.
Due to all the YO-YO ing he has gotten from the Giants over the last few years.
Wow what a joke the Giants have been. The Padres and Dodgers are steady improving the team with talent and the Giants bring in career minor leaguers that are straight buns. Bryce is a singles hitter with no plate discipline. 19bb? Prepare for Giants to suck for many years to come.
I know many Giant fans think Aaron Judge will sign in SF, I’m not so sure. I bet he resigns in NY.
Giants ownership better recognize that something has to change. The farm just isn’t producing, so please spend $ on a young superstar.
The farm isn’t producing, because none of the top prospects have been called up. That is other than Bart, who we still don’t know about, and the Ramos cup of coffee.
Fangraphs has Ramos ranked #5, and Bart at #6, of the Giants prospects. If Luciano, Matos, and Harrison fail to produce, then I complain along with you, but it’s too early for that.
Will Bryce Johnson be the next:
Steven Dugger, Mac Williams, Jarred Parker, Todd Linden, John Bowker, Calvin Murray, Nate Schierholtz, Drew Robinson, etc. Add your own FAILED Giant Outfielders.
I agree with those except Drew Robinson and Nate Schierholtz. Robinson wasn’t developed by the Giants and it’s awfully hard to play baseball after you’ve lost the use of one eye. He did well enough just to work his way onto the field. Schierholtz was still a good defender and useful part-time player. I will add Gary Brown, Marvin Benard and Rikkert Faneyte since we have not established a time period for the failed outfielders. Rikkert Faneyte-boy they’re not kidding when they say the average MLB fan is old.
The last outfielder the Giants drafted and developed who made an all-star team? Chili Davis. The cycle of futility needs to end.
BTW, Patrick Bailey, Farhan’s first 1st round draft pick who, as a catcher, put Joey Bart in panic mode and destroyed his confidence, is hitting under .210 in the low minors. He needs to own his failures
I say Duggar style at best. They need to move up Schmidt he seems like he could be solid. He don’t k much, got some good pop, and he can draw some BBs.
The reason they didn’t develop well in the OF is that they focused on pitching first, then catching and the IF, believing the OF was the easiest place to supplement through free-agency.
They developed Cain, Lincecum, Bumgarner, and Vogelsong, Posey at catcher, and supplemented the OF with guys like Pat Burrell, Andres Torres, Angel Pagan, Mike Morse, and Hunter Pence. That philosophy worked for 3 WS titles.
I’d also point out that Schierholtz has a WS ring as the regular RF for the 2010 Giants. But anyone that thinks any team can develop top talent across the board, doesn’t know much about building a winning team.
Lord knows this team needs defensive help. Sheesh
The Giants have never really learned their lesson about dumpster diving going back at least as far as 2010. Your average decent major league player has a period (varies from player to player but it seems like 2-3 years) of optimal productivitt, and for those players who have already been chewed up and spit out by the system that period is even shorter. What the Giants fail to understand is that they can’t build their roster around surprise late bloomers they find while dumpster-diving; these are at best complimentary players. They still need to develop their own stars and that comes from drafting, scouting, trading,and developing well. They should have at least backed off on giving Desclafani a multi-year deal
I can understand their hesitation in signing players to large contracts given how easily they go bad (Cueto, Zito, Samardzija, Pence…) but you have to be willing to take some risks too. What they have constructed this year is a low risk-low reward team. They might as well call themselves the A’s right now, except I would rather watch the A’s play on TV right now.
The Giants fell for Crawford having the best season on his walk year. Signed him and he went back to the normal Crawford. I can’t see why ML teams don’t look at how many players up there game in the last year of their contract and then return to normal.
Just curious, but people post that last years 107 win season was two years ahead of schedule because all of their high prospects would be ready to come up in 2023. However, most of the players they do call up are struggling. Is the minor league farm system overrated? If so, it seems that Zaidi and staff can’t evaluate talent imho
None of their top 4 prospects have been called up. In fact the vast majority of their 30 haven’t been called up either. Only Ramos, their #5, but for only 7 games, Bart #6, Santos #7, and Sean Hjelle #28 have seen MLB. A lot of the guys like Johnson are called up to see if they’re worth protecting from the Rule 5 draft. But the farm is a top 10, or about, ranked system.
Thanks for the info. Of course I’m no GM, but imho it’s almost time, some, if not all, should get called up and see what they can do on the big stage. They’ll all need to make some sort of adjustments, but why not start now? It’s clearly evident this team does not have the talent to compete with the dodgers, Padres, Yankees and many, if not all, playoff contenders.
Bring the kids up, and let them play sounds good, fans say that all the time, but it just doesn’t work that way. The minors exist for a reason other than storage for extra players.
Young players make mistakes, and haven’t seen major league pitchers and hitters. A good way to overwhelm a kid, and destroy his confidence is to bring him up too soon.
The minor leagues are for learning. That’s where they need to make the mistakes. The majors are for producing. Making a mistake in the majors, maybe costing the team a win, in front of tens of 1,000’s fans, and millions more watching on TV, can be a devastating experience, and not a learning one.
Remember that the current crop is behind schedule, not having had the 2020 season. Joey Bart is a good example of someone that was rushed, and had his development set back. He’d be farther along now, had he not missed a season, and been exposed to ML pitching too soon.
Yup you see how swansby is doing this yr he’ll get a payday and go back to his old self.
I’m as frustrated as anyone over the way this team is playing. But all this hysteria among Giants fans is frankly embarrassing. It’s like people have lost all sense of proportion. This team is playing horribly now. I agree, they’re terrible to watch.
But it was only about 7 weeks ago, when they were much healthier, that they were 9 games over ‘500. on pace to win 93 games. I don’t expect them to do anything this year, even if, by some chance they earn a WC berth. But this team isn’t as bad as how they’ve looked recently.
I’m confident FZ will put a competitive team on the field next season. Talk of firing him sounds like the wailing of petulant child that can’t get his way. Maybe he isn’t all I believe he is, but firing him would be ridiculously premature.
Imagine delivering a 107-win season smack in the middle of a rebuild, and then people demand you be fired.