Pablo Sandoval will get one final at bat in a Giants uniform before heading off to get Tommy John surgery. The Giants activated him from the IL today, the first day rosters can expand from 25 to a maximum of 40.
There’s a lot of weight behind this activation. This will very likely be Pablo Sandoval’s final time in a Giants uniform, although that might be unnecessarily glib given that the front office has seen fit to raze everything the Giants have been. At the same time, this being Bruce Bochy’s final season probably served to operate as a sort of “year in review”, a chance for Zaidi and company to fully evaluate the organization and make tweaks where they could but avoiding any wholesale changes.
He’ll be a free agent after the season and while I’m sure he will find work on a major league roster, there’s no guarantee that non-roster invite with a $2 million deal should he make the roster will come from the Giants. So, as with anything meaningful, let’s try to be present and enjoy the at bat.
Same goes for the September call-ups. Chris Shaw took some lumps this year, being demoted to Double-A to start the season and asked to work on his plate discipline. Whatever plate discipline instruction guide or how-to video the Giants devised has seemed to work. Not only have new players like Jaylin Davis and Mauricio Dubon improved their K:BB ratio in the Giants’ minor league system, so too have holdovers from the Evans era.
Last year, Shaw’s K/BB was 6.85, meaning he struck out nearly 7 times per every walk. This year, it’s down to 2.85, or about 3 strikeouts per every walk. That’s not in Zaidi’s preferred range of 2:1, but it’s a remarkable adjustment in less than a full season. Whatever the hitting instructors are whispering to the minor leaguers really seems to be working.
The Sacramento River Cats are in the playoffs for the first time since they’ve become a Giants affiliate. During the A’s affiliate days, they were a perennial playoff contender. For the first time in a long while, though, the Giants have placed some focus on turning every level of their system into winners. It hasn’t totally worked out yet — San Jose finished 34-34, Richmond 53-84 — but the transformation of the River Cats has been a standout. The
Giants added a bunch of older players into the mix and rather than discover they were 4-A type players, they found some hidden gems who just needed an opportunity. Shaw had 21 home runs in 75 games and a .947 OPS in 310 plate appearances after getting called up. Now he’ll be leaving his teammates behind for their playoff quest.
Shaw said he wasn’t sure he’d get called up because of playoffs. Said they have no first basemen now other than catchers Freeman and Peña. #sfgiants
— Henry Schulman (@hankschulman) September 1, 2019
The Giants also called up Aramis Garcia, another potential first baseman, along with Conner Menez, and Burch Smith, whom they claimed back on August 13th. Smith gives the Giants another starter/reliever type, and between him, Menez, Dereck Rodriguez, and Shaun Anderson, the Giants seem setup to whether shaky starts and blowouts over the final 27 games of the season.
I’m sure the River Cats could use someone with a .947 OPS for the playoffs, and if he’s not getting a nice chunk of playing time with the Giants, then the move will really sting; but, having done everything the organization’s asked of him, it makes sense that they’d seek to reward him for all the good work while slightly increasing the big league club’s chance of adding a power threat. Shaw won’t have to hit like Alex Dickerson’s first few weeks to make the move worth it. Maybe just somewhere in the pre-August Mike Yastrzemski range.
There’s also a good chance the Giants add more players once the River Cats’ season ends. Melvin Adon, Sam Selman, Andy Suarez, William Jerez, Abiatal Avelino, Zack Green, Mike Gerber, and Joe McCarthy all have 40-man roster status.
Of course, the bigger news in waiting is that Johnny Cueto looks set to rejoin the Giants roster.
74 pitches through 6. No runs, 4 hits, 6 strikeouts. Fastball hit 92 a few times. A very strong outing for Johnny Cueto in Sacramento.
— Doug (@moonwalkmcfly) September 1, 2019
This will be the last time in baseball that September becomes a “take a look” month. Next year, 25-man rosters are set to expand to 26 from March-August and then a maximum of 28 in September. The two-player add will be mandatory, too, but it’s a lot less exciting to think that we’ll get to see just two additional players suit up for the final month of the season, and for teams that are already out of the playoff race, an unnecessary ceiling on dreaming of tomorrow.