Giants designate Justin Maxwell for assignment, recall Hector Sanchez, Cody Hall, Nick Noonan

The September roster shuffling is here, and it comes with a bit of a surprise. To make room on the 40-man roster, the Giants designated Justin Maxwell for assignment, effectively ending his Giants career. Of course, considering that he was designated to make room for Nick Noonan, these doors tend to stay fairly open.

Coming up to the active roster with Noonan for now is catcher Hector Sanchez and right-handed reliever Cody Hall. As the minor-league postseason chases wind down, more players will likely shuffle up to the major league roster. I even wonder if Hall would be here this soon if not for the extra-innings debacle last night. Sanchez and Noonan you know, and Hall you'll get to know. He looks like this:

Maxwell was a revelation early in the season, but since his high-water mark of a 1.042 OPS after 16 games, he's hit .190/.248/.301 over 235 plate appearances. There isn't enough defense in the world to make up for that, and the prolonged, multi-month slump helps explain the Alejandro De Aza move yesterday.

As a reminder, Noonan ranked highly on the Giants-most-likely-to-return list earlier this year. To be fair, I wouldn't prefer him over Ehire Adrianza in a fair fight -- the defense tips the scales, sorry -- and I'm a little disappointed that Kevin Frandsen isn't the one who was called up. But this is a move for next year's depth, too, with Joaquin Arias likely gone and Adrianza on the bubble.

Hector Sanchez will give the Giants some flexibility off the bench, allowing them to pinch-hit Andrew Susac more often. Though if you've watched Susac since his return from the DL, maybe you would prefer Sanchez as the bench bat. These are dark times.

Angel Pagan and Tim Hudson are coming back from the DL, though it's still unknown in what capacity. Gregor Blanco hit .300/.388/.366 in the three weeks since Pagan was out, playing a much better center field. The Giants would be bananas, absolutely bananas, to start Pagan in the remaining month. Their veteran-leaning tendencies can't possibly be that radioactive. But we'll see. Maybe we should get an office pool going.

Edit: lol

Giants tonight: Pagan CF, Duffy 3B, Belt 1B, Posey C, Byrd RF, De Aza LF, Tomlinson 2B, Bumgarner DH, Adrianza SS

— Alex Pavlovic (@AlexPavlovic) September 1, 2015

There are likely to be more pitchers on the way, but the Giants have their infield help and an extra reliever tonight. Hopefully the Giants don't need either of them for a couple games.