The Giants have claimed first baseman/corner outfielder Taylor Jones off waivers from the Astros and optioned him to Triple-A Sacramento. Utilityman Jose Rojas has been designated for assignment to clear a spot on the 40-man roster. Houston had designated Jones for assignment earlier this week.
Jones changes organizations for the first time in his career. A 19th-round pick of the Astros in 2016, he’s spent the past six-plus years in the Houston system. The Gonzaga product has typically played well in the minor leagues, posting particularly strong numbers in the upper levels. Through parts of three seasons in Triple-A, Jones is a .279/.377/.487 hitter. That includes a quality .263/.370/.456 showing through 322 plate appearances this year. Jones has connected on 12 home runs and drawn walks at a quality 10.9% clip while striking out at a slightly higher than average rate (24.2%).
Despite the solid work in the minors, the 28-year-old hasn’t gotten much of a look in the big leagues. He’s appeared at the highest level in each of the past three years, but he’s picked up a cumulative 131 plate appearances in sporadic playing time. Jones hasn’t played well in that limited look, managing only a .234/.260/.395 line with a trio of longballs and an alarming 27.5% strikeout percentage.
The Giants are as active as any team at scouring the waiver wire, and they’ll take a shot on Jones’ upper minors productivity. He’s in his last minor league option year, meaning San Francisco can keep him in Triple-A for the final few weeks of the season. He’ll be out of options in 2023, though. If he holds his spot on the 40-man roster all winter, he’ll have to break camp on the MLB club or again be designated for assignment.
Rojas has been part of the Giants waiver wire churn. San Francisco snagged him from the Angels less than two weeks ago, and he’s spent his limited time in the organization with Sacramento. He’s appeared in seven games on optional assignment there and now loses his spot on the 40-man without having suited up in a big league contest.
A left-handed hitter, Rojas has appeared in the bigs with the Halos in each of the past two seasons. He’s not made much of an impact against MLB pitching, carrying a .188/.245/.339 slash with six homers through 241 trips to the plate. Like Jones, Rojas has been a very good hitter at the Triple-A level. Through parts of four seasons there, he sports a .277/.343/.525 line, including a .274/.346/.569 mark this season. The 29-year-old also offers a fair bit of defensive flexibility, suiting up at each of first, second and third base and in the corner outfield.
For the second time this month, Rojas will find himself on the waiver wire. He has an additional option remaining beyond this season and won’t reach arbitration for multiple years, so it’s possible another team will add him as an upper-level depth player. If he goes unclaimed, Rojas would have the right to reject an outright assignment in favor of free agency.
Manfred should ban waiver claims and minor league deals as an experiment to see how the Giants and Cubs would actually put a roster together.
What is wrong with this method, exactly?
The the Giants have been Dumpster diving and not putting the money they earn back into the roster and fans are sick of it.
yep they were really sick of winning 107 last season and 3 WS in last 12 years.
That didn’t answer my question. Dumpster diving and spending money are not mutually exclusive. It’s not like the legion of fans carrying pitchforks are saying “the Giants aren’t spending!” and Farhan responds with, “Look. I acquired Taylor Jones. What more do you want?!”
I am a Giants fan, and the most annoying thing this season is fellow Giants fans complaining. When Farhan took over the team in 2018, it was a mess of aging players dead-weight contracts and a weak farm. Meanwhile, they are in a division with two theoretical powerhouses. So in my opinion, it stood to reason that the Giants would not be competitive immediately upon his arrival, much less for the next few seasons. But I was proven wrong last season with the 107-win season.
From my perspective, he won in part due to his dumpster diving ways. Wade Jr., Yaz, Solano, Ruf, Estrada, Flores, Gausman, and DeSclafani all contributed in 2021, and none of those players were seen as win-now moves. Most of them were either coin tosses or dumpster diving. So YMMV, but in my opinion, that shows Farhan’s technique at least has some viability.
They could’ve gone out and scored some high-priced free agents, but what would that have achieved? The Texas Rangers spent big on two high-priced free agents when they were more than two high-priced free agents away from winning, but you can ask them how that went.
And again, this does not preclude them from spending when the time comes. First, ownership has expressed an interest in the team remaining relevant (it plays into their real estate purchase of nearby properties), so spending will come. Second, the Giants have spent some spent money when it made sense – the Gausman qualifying offer, the $20+mm on Rodon this year, and to a much lesser extent, for better or worse, re-signing DeSclafani, Wood, Crawford, and Flores. So again, YMMV, but I am optimistic the Giants will spend big when they see fit on their roster.
If the Giants have gaps on the roster and do not even attempt to spend to fill those gaps then hand me one of those pitchforks and I’ll be right there along with the rest of the noisy Giants fans. But for right now, we’ve only seen Farhan work with a sub-par Giants team that wasn’t anywhere near ready for competing, and even with that qualifier, his techniques seemed to work last year.
Wow, nicely done dis. Funny thing is they spent money. Rodon, Pederson, Cobb. 2 were Allstars. Cobb has been an allstar since Allstars. Best bullpen in baseball last year and management figured they were set. Can’t use hindsight to gripe. Defense top 5 last year. Injuries cause lack of continuity and therefore lack of consistency. They spent money but much of 2021 didn’t repeat. Players faltered but blame the check writers.
The Sacramento River Cats have had one winning season in their history (2015-present) as a Giants affiliate. Even in 2019 they only finished 73-67 in the regular season. They reached the playoffs only because their division was very weak.
The Fresno Grizzlies only had 5 winning seasons during their time with the Giants (1998-2014). Don’t let facts get in the way of your efforts to flash your internet courage.
At least limit the number of waiver claims a team can put in. The Giants have just used the dfa as a way to churn players through the system, often dumping them soon after getting them. The whole thing seems pointless. For all the players FZ has acquired from other teams after being dfa’d, only a few have actually played for the Giants. And even fewer have had made a positive contribution to the team.
The most commonly used phrase on moves like this is “no risk acquisition”. However, these players are quickly forgotten and its creates more turbulence in their careers.
So, because every waiver claim doesn’t produce another Yaz, Gonzalez, or Wade, then FZ should abandon the process? Anyone thinking the majority of these waiver claim guys are going to contribute is delusional. In finding the overlooked players that can contribute you have to look at a ton of guys. If it was obvious who can produce, and who can’t, nobody would be overlooked.
I think your post illustrates the absurdity at how often these transactions are meaningless and are not needed (by the way, I don’t think Yaz was a dfa victim. It was a minor league trade that brought him to the Giants, so not part of this specific point about dfa’s and waiver claims). The vast majority of these claims are for the sake of finding another player to fill out depth. Except, the claim kicks the last guy that was there to fill in depth, often without seeing if he can really be a piece worth keeping. Heck, calling human beings “pieces” sounds callous itself, but that is often how players are viewed in these transactions..
I see the value in taking a chance on some waiver claims. What I don’t care for is claiming a player giving him a couple of games and then discarding him for someone else. Yes, that kind of treatment is an unfriendly reality of MLB, especially these days, but it makes me doubt how much the Giants really value that player’s potential. Is he just a placeholder until a shiny new waiver claim is available ? As a longtime baseball fan I’m not very fond of players being treated like they’re disposable. It’s one thing if the player is bad, but they’re not even being given the chance to prove they don’t belong. Perhaps this the rambling of an elderly person but I like to see a team commit to its initial roster as long as practical based on player health and performance, get to know the players’ stories + see what they can do. The kind of waiver frenzy is like a person who flips through the TV channels without even stopping to find out what’s on.
Oh, there are definitely some waiver claims that have been good ones for the Giants. They picked up both Jarlin Garcia and John Brebbia that way. But both were pretty obvious no-brainers pick ups. There was no good reason for the Marlins to dfa Garcia to begin with. I believe the thinking at the time was to save money in arbitration by letting him go. The Cardinals moved on from Brebbia after his surgery (TJ, I believe) and the Giants getting him was a bit more of a gamble on how he’d do when healthy but he still had a good track record before being picked.
What I don’t like about the frequency of the pick ups, is, like you said, how disposable the players have become. The GMs of these teams (yes, its not just the Giants, but they are probably among the teams who do it most frequently) seem to be almost addicted to picking up the latest guy on the waiver wire. There needs to be a Waiver Claim Anonymous for some of these GMs and executive VPs.
First of all, a DFA, and being put on waivers are two separate things. Yaz was not waived. Had the trade taken place during the regular season it probably would have been preceded by a DFA.
I would disagree that a minor league trade, like Yaz’s, is vastly different from a waiver claim. Since Yaz was traded, yes he’s marginally better than the typical waived player, which is why the O’s got Tyler Herb in return. But the value of Tyler Herb should be indicative of how marginal that difference is.
But, Yaz was a guy that was low on the depth chart, and Zaidi saw a chance since the Orioles weren’t likely to give him an opportunity at the ML level.
That’s not that much different from some other guys at the bottom of a team’s 40 man roster that gets waived because they’ve acquired someone they like better, and need that spot.
And how often these claims are meaningless is irrelevant. If Zaidi can find one productive player, it’s worth it, since they’re all come with zero risk.
I’d be curious if there were more data on how much turbulence it does cause for players because I can see it both ways.
Because on one hand, if a player was just released and is running out of opportunities, I don’t see how their playing career is really meaningfully affected by being picked up one last time since their alternative is just not playing at all. Sure, MiLB is a grind, but this is more a symptom of that than a root cause in that situation. On the other hand though, if it were to say, elevate depression to get their hopes up just to be cut one week later all for a GM to see if they can cash in on that one tool that may or may not actually exist, then yeah, some safety nets for the player to prevent that activity should be in store.
I would also like to see this. I would argue that if dfa’s and waiver claims were limited to a set amount, per team, per year, that it could actually help with player opportunities. Do you remember seeing so many of these transactions 5 or 10 years ago? Related, have you seen a AAA team, like the RiverCats, trot out 94 different players in one season?
And as for player opportunities, does being on the dfa carousel really help? Sure, it may be fun for transaction wonks to see a player bounce across 4 different teams’ 40 man roster in 1 month, but how does that impact the player? If he is married, his wife? And if he has kids, them?
Basically, in my view, the frequency of teams churning players on and off their 40 man rosters are unnecessary. Most GMs know that the guys they claim will be gone within the month but still do it in hopes that maybe that one guy will provide something. I don’t know if any analysis has been done on this, but I have to wonder if any team has really been able to add enough wins to make the playoffs by playing this game.
But if we did limit the number of transactions (and by extension, teams were less willing to pick up a DFA’d player without probable cause), does sitting on the open market without suitors really help, either?
And let’s not forget that the player has to accept the assignment. So if I had a wife and kids and was playing in Nantucket (and theoretically live nearby) and was DFA’d, then get a call from Farhan to come to play in Sacramento, I’d have the option to try to look for something closer to home than just accept his proposal, provided he using some sketchy techniques to try to persuade players. If that is the case, then yeah, there should absolutely be some measures in place to protect the player.
I’m talking more about limiting the number of times a team can designate players for assignment. If a team only have, say, 20 times a season that they can designate a player for assignment, there were be less players on the open market and fewer players for them to claim.
Now this may mean having one or two more option years on players. The first reaction may be that the Players’ Union would not have it but I bet that if they looked into that deeply, they would be okay with it because it would give more stability to the players that rule change would most affect.
Oh my how can Farhan still keep picking up these mop bucket scrubs? Lol unreal
For all the waiver claims and outrights Farhan makes, you’d think at least their AAA team would at least be good? Nope, 15 games under.
No, it only allows the AAA team to use 51(!) pitchers and 43 position players in one season.
Well, it’s unusual when the Giants’ AAA teams have winning records because they are basically just testing labs for relievers and bench players.
Didn’t the Fresno Grizzlies win a PCL championship the first year the Giants weren’t their affiliate ? That’s telling.
Only Here, the Sacramento River Cats (Giants) won the national title 2 years ago. What’s telling is that your post proved you’re an idiot.
@Onlyhereforthecoffee – how is that telling? If the Giants weren’t an affiliate anymore, that means all players that were part of the Giants system were no longer on that team. So mismanaged or not, that tells us nothing.
The Giants are becoming the Astros West
It is a bit weird that the Giants have put in waiver claims on 3 Astros DFAs ( Jonathan Bermudez, Lewis Brinson and now Taylor Jones). None of these guys were viewed as top prospects ( Brinson was a top prospect with the Rangers who lost that status several years ago), however they are all guys “on the margin” between big-league ready and minor league vets. Worth flyers at least as bench players or long relief.
Brinson wasn’t a waiver claim. He came over in a minor league trade with the Astros. However, it was still the Astros. Maybe the Mariners closed up shop with FZ and Harris..
5 straight Alcs appearances. I think any team would want to copy that kind of success right now
It made sense for the Astros to drop Jones. Potential, but the team can find a better 1B in free agency.
It also makes sense for SF to pick him up, just to bait the fan base.
How is this baiting their fanbase? If I went to the Giant’s Twitter and saw a “WELCOME TAYLOR JONES!”, or read some article with quotes about how Jones is our future, I would eat my words. But this is a meaningless, bottom-of-the-roster, no-risk move that 99% of Giants fans won’t even know about.
Don’t need to sign Judge now
Worthington has top comment thus far..
I judge that worthington’s comment is worth a ton
Dumb comment Worthlesston. Sarcasm is easy not clever.
It was a pretty harmless comment. Just trying to crack off a joke. As an Angel fan, all we can be is self deprecating about our team.
Some fans like to give the impression that Zaidi is the only guy making waiver claims. First off, for some reason MLBTR doesn’t publish every waiver clam. According to BB Ref, these claims were made 9/9 to 9/14:
The Oakland Athletics selected Conner Capel off waivers from the St. Louis Cardinals.
The Cincinnati Reds selected Luke Farrell off waivers from the Chicago Cubs.
The Chicago White Sox selected Nicholas Padilla off waivers from the Chicago Cubs.
The Baltimore Orioles selected Cam Gallagher off waivers from the San Diego Padres.
The Boston Red Sox selected Yu Chang off waivers from the Tampa Bay Rays.
The Philadelphia Phillies selected Tayler Scott off waivers from the San Diego Padres.
Since then MLBTR reported the Rays claiming Bligh Madris, and the Giants claiming Taylor Jones. Clearly Zaidi is not the only guy dumpster diving.
I wasn’t aware how much info traderumors misses. Thanks I’ll def start looking for alternate sites
Jones is not a prospect. Not sure what the Giants are doing.
The term prospect means nothing more than having a little more hope for development. But plenty of prospects fail, and conversely, there are guys that couldn’t break a top 100 list that became all-stars.
Taylor Jones was never really given an opportunity in Houston. Hope he gets a chance and succeeds with the giants. Always great to hear about players who are blocked in the minors then go on to have a productive career