The San Francisco Giants have made their first signing of the offseason, and it’s a bit of a unique one. The team announced on Tuesday night that they had signed Jason Vosler — who has yet to make his MLB debut — to a Major League contract.
OFFICIAL: #SFGiants have agreed to terms on a Major League contract with infielder Jason Vosler. The 27-year-old last played for the San Diego Padres’ AAA affiliate in El Paso in 2019. With today’s addition, the 40-man roster is now at 38 players.
— SFGiants (@SFGiants) November 11, 2020
Vosler is a 27-year old corner infielder who hits left-handed. He was drafted in the 16th round of the 2014 MLB Draft by the Chicago Cubs, and most recently played in the San Diego Padres organization.
In 2019 he played for the Padres AAA affiliate, and hit .291/.367/.523, with 20 home runs in 425 plate appearances. He also had a decent walk to strikeout ratio of 45 to 102.
Against right-handed hitters those numbers were a fair bit better, as he hit .300/.371/.563, with 19 home runs in 338 plate appearances. The Giants likely see him as a platoon option to share third base with Evan Longoria, whose bat has cooled down significantly. Vosler could be a platoon bat at third, while providing depth at first base, and a power option as a pinch-hitter. That’s a pretty valuable thing to have.
Here’s what his swing looks like:
This probably diminishes the chances of the Giants spending big money on a free agent infielder like Ha-seong Kim. But if you put that aside, it certainly seems like an intriguing signing, and looking at Vosler’s splits, power numbers, and walk rates, you can see why the Giants have some interest.
It’s worth noting that the Giants helped Mike Yastrzemski — and quite a few other players — put all the pieces together with their swings, likely because they identified something to work on. That could be the case with Vosler.
As John King has said roughly 7,969,109 times in the last week, we’ll just have to wait and see.