Giants call up Luis Basabe for doubleheader

The San Francisco Giants are playing a doubleheader against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Thursday, which in 2020 means a pair of seven-inning games.

It also means that teams are allowed to call up a 29th player to put on the roster for the day. San Francisco went in a rather surprising direction, choosing to bring up recently acquired outfield prospect Luis Basabe.

The Giants acquired Basabe a few weeks ago from the Chicago White Sox, in exchange for cash considerations. The 24 year old switch-hitter has struggled with the bat in his career so far, hitting .246/.324/.336 a year ago in 291 AA plate appearances. But he has a 60/60 grade for both speed and throwing, as well as 50/50 for raw power. There’s certainly some exciting stuff there to work with, enough so that MLB Pipeline ranks him as the Giants number 18 prospect, and Fangraphs sees him as their number 29 prospect.

That said, it’s pretty odd that they’re opting to give Basabe a quick cup of coffee rather than bringing Jaylin Davis back, but perhaps they just want to get his toes wet.

If Basabe plays in either end of the doubleheader, it will mark not only his MLB debut but his first appearance above AA ball. Either way, it figures to be an exciting day for him.

And one more note, in case you missed it when the Giants traded for Basabe. This is Luis Alexander Basabe; his twin brother, Luis Alejandro Basabe is a prospect in the Arizona Diamondbacks organization. And their cousin, Luis Matos, is one of the Giants top prospects.