Poll: Giants Backup Catcher

Entering Spring Training, there was some belief that veteran catcher Tom Murphy’s job backing up Patrick Bailey in San Francisco wasn’t entirely assured even in of the $4.25MM guaranteed remaining on his contract with the Giants. The door has opened for other alternatives even more since then, as the club announced yesterday that Murphy will miss multiple weeks with a herniated disc in his mid-back.

While Murphy is still tentatively expected to be available at some point in the first half, his availability for the start of the season is in serious doubt. With the club’s incumbent likely to miss at least the start of the season due to injury, the Giants have little choice but to seriously consider the number of alternative options currently in camp with them. The club has four catchers in camp aside from Bailey and Murphy as things stand: Sam Huff, Max Stassi, Logan Porter, and Adrian Sugastey. Sugastey is just 22 years old and slashed a meager .210/.241/.304 at Double-A last season, leaving him extremely unlikely to be called up to the majors until he’s had more time to develop. Huff, Stassi, and Porter all appear to be legitimate contenders for the job, however.

To the extent that there’s a favorite for the job, it seems that status would fall to Huff now that Murphy is out of commission. Unlike the other options in camp with the club, Huff is already on the 40-man roster after being plucked off waivers from the Rangers shortly after the new year. A former consensus top-100 prospect, Huff was a seventh-round pick by the Rangers in 2016 who blossomed into an intriguing bat-first catcher during his time in the minor leagues. Above-average offense isn’t necessarily a must from a club’s backup catcher, but given Bailey’s light-hitting, defense-first profile it’s easy to see why the Giants might be attracted to Huff as a potential complement.

A career .263/.334/.480 hitter across all levels of the minors, Huff has 78 games in the big leagues under his belt across four seasons with Texas. Unfortunately, that big league playing time has been something of a mixed bag. While he’s posted a solid 112 wRC+ in 214 career MLB plate appearances, he’s struck out at a massive 33.6% clip and largely been buoyed by a .353 BABIP that seems unlikely to be sustainable. Huff has generally been regarded as a below-average defender behind the plate as well despite a strong throwing arm and decent framing ability. That lack of defensive excellence puts more pressure on Huff’s bat, and it can be difficult for a high-strikeout profile like Huff’s to offer consistent production in a bench role.

Those potential question marks surrounding Huff could open the door for Stassi to take the job. The most experienced catcher in the backup mix for the Giants (even including Murphy), the soon to be 34-year-old has participated in parts of 10 MLB seasons, including a three-year run of regular at-bats with the Angels from 2020 to 2022. While the 2020 and ’21 seasons saw Stassi briefly break out offensively with a solid 113 wRC+, Stassi is mostly a glove-first catcher; he hit just .180/.267/.303 across 102 games in 2022 and has a career wRC+ of just 83. With +20 framing runs since the start of the 2018 season according to Statcast, however, Stassi makes up for his lack of offense with excellent defense that could pair with Bailey to give the Giants the best defensive tandem behind the plate in the sport.

Stassi comes with his own flaws, however. Most notably, he hasn’t played in the big leagues since 2022 due to a combination of family considerations and injuries. At nearly 34 years old, Stassi has reached the age where many catchers start to struggle to stay effective due to the toll the position takes on the body, and that concern is exacerbated for Stassi in particular due to both his checkered recent history and the fact that he regressed both offensively and defensively during the 2022 campaign.

Of course, that regression may have also had something to do with his career-high workload that year, an issue that would not come up in 2025 should he serve as Bailey’s backup. On the other hand, Stassi offers little upside, with even a solid rebound from his 2022 season likely ending with him being a below-average hitter. Huff offers significantly more upside, both due to the potential of his bat and because he has less than two years of MLB service time under his belt at this point, allowing him to be controlled through the end of the 2029 season.

Porter, meanwhile, stands as less likely to earn the job than either Huff or Stassi but also represents something of a middle ground between the two. The 29-year-old is the least experienced of the trio at the big league level, having appeared in just 11 games with the Royals back in 2023. With that being said, he has a reputation as a strong defender and pairs that with a bat that showed some life at Triple-A last year, where he slashed a combined .267/.370/.453 (114 wRC+) in 73 across the Royals, Mets, and Giants organizations. Given his lack of big league experience, Porter could be controlled long-term and even optioned to the minor leagues if added to the 40-man roster, while Huff is out of options and Stassi has enough service time to decline an optional assignment.

Assuming Murphy begins the season on the injured list, which catcher should the Giants pair with Bailey? Is Huff’s former top prospect status and offensive upside worth the lackluster defense and potential contact issues? Should the club gamble on Stassi’s track record of MLB success despite his long layoff from big league games and worrying signals in his 2022 campaign? Or should the club take a chance on Porter despite his minimal big league experience? Have your say in the poll below: