26 for 2026

No surprises on the infield (4): Rafael Devers at 1B, Luis Arraez at 2B, Willy Adames at SS, and Matt Chapman at 3B. This is the heart of the team. They have to be healthy and perform for this club to succeed.

Patrick Bailey is the catcher (2) and his backup is Daniel Susac.

The outfield (3) will be Jung Hoo Lee, Harrison Bader, and Heliot Ramos.  

On the bench (4) are Casey Schmitt, Jerar Encarnación, Christian Koss, and (surprise!) Jared Oliva.

The starting rotation (5) is set: Logan Webb, Robbie Ray, Adrian Houser, Tyler Mahle, and Landen Roupp.

The bullpen (8) will be Ryan Walker, Erik Miller, José Buttó, Caleb Killian, Matt Gage, Keaton Winn, Ryan Borucki, and JT Brubaker.

4 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 8 = 26

The Giants open the season for all of MLB tonight (5:05 Pacific) in San Francisco against the Yankees. Logan Webb gets the ball.

Go, team!

--M.C.

 

p.s. There is a lot of talent at AAA: Bryce Eldridge, Carson Seymour, Carson Whisenhunt, Blade Tidwell, Tyler Fitzgerald, Grant McCray, Will Brennan, Drew Gilbert, Tristan Beck, Trevor McDonald, Spencer Bivens, Will Bednar, Caleb Killian, etc. We'll be seeing some of these guys when the inevitable injuries occur. 

The State of the Ballclub

Top prospect Bryce Eldridge will start the season in AAA. There's no shortage at DH otherwise. I'm assuming Jerar Encarnación will make the team. FNG Luis Arráez also plays first base (he did so for Team Venzuela). Rafael Devers says he likes to play the field and he did fine at first base but he'll be slotted in often at DH. And of course the roster spot that Eldridge filled will have to be re-filled. Roster Resource is suggesting FNG lefty-swinging Will Brennan.

FanGraphs does a thing every year called Positional Power Rankings. They rank all 30 teams at each position. Here's how the Giants rank:

Catcher: #3

Third base: #4

Shortstop: #10

Second base: #18

First base: #10

Left field: #17

Center field: #16

Right field: #14

We can quibble with some of the rankings. And a half-dozen players are usually clustered together and a ranking like #12 could be #6 with a +/- 0.5 WAR variation. The very top players (Aaron Judge, Juan Soto, etc.) are 3-5 WAR above their second-ranked peers. I think the 1B rank is too low, and 2B as well. The Giants have a strong infield. This is the heart of the club. That group has to stay healthy all season long and produce near their career norms for the team to be competitive.

The outfield is pretty average, but we knew that.

The pitching is the big question mark. If Logan Webb is healthy we know what he'll do. Can Robbie Ray stay healthy and do what he did last season? Same for Landen Roupp. FNGs Tyler Mahle and Adrian Houser don't impress the projection systems, coming in at about 1.5 WAR each, or perhaps better to say a 1.0 to 2.0 range. Let's hope they beat those numbers.

I don't really have any thoughts on the bullpen. We'll just have to see how it shakes out.

FanGraphs says the Giants will finish 81-81 in second place behind the 93-69 Dodgers. 

But they have a 38.6% chance to make the playoffs!

Anyway, baseball is played by real people, not computers. We'll see what Our Fearless Leader Buster has cooking up there in the Owner/PoBO box and what FNG TonyV has cooking down there in the dugout real soon. I keep wanting to call him "Coach" but that's not going to fly up here in big-boy baseball.

I note I said "we'll see" too many times.

Go Giants!

--M.C.

 

p.s. They gotta be better than last year, doncha' think? 

Injury update

Hayden Birdsong will be getting Tommy John surgery next week. Obviously he won't figure in the Giants plans for 2026. Best case? He's pitching again in mid-2027.

Injuries happen, especially to pitchers. This one really stinks. Not so much that I was expecting a lot from Birdsong, just that he is so young and has a lot of upside.

 --M.C.

¡Beísbol!

Team Venezuela claimed the WBC crown with a gripping 3-2 win over pre-tourney favorites Team USA. I must point out that the San Francisco Giants were all over this. Luis Arráez, the Giants new second baseman, started the winning rally in the 9th with a walk. That's right, a walk. This is from the man who walks 5% of the time! Giants reliever José Buttó contributed a scoreless inning. Team Venezuela had a seriously great bullpen. Arraez was 8-for-26 (4 2B, 2 HR, 6 R, 10 RBI, 3 BB, 2 SO) in seven games and Buttó was unscored upon in 5-1/3 IP over five games (1 H, 1 K).

Team USA had Logan Webb, of course, and he was a stud, but not available for the final. Former Giants pitcher and one of my all-time favorite players, Tyler Rogers, also pitched for Team USA. He got a big double play against Team Dominican Republic the night before last, and he got two big outs in the 9th tonight. The USA-Dominican Republic game was also a gripping contest. It was too bad that an obvious ball four was called strike three to end the D.R.'s chance at a comeback, you hate to see games end like that, but it was otherwise an exciting match.

I think the WBC has been very entertaining and it's clear that baseball is a truly international game. I really enjoyed seeing all the different players from all the different places. It seems to work fitting it in during Spring Training. Thankfully lots of games were on free, off-the-air TV (Fox) and the rest could be followed via Gameday.

Giants play the Dodgers tomorrow.

--M.C. 

Webb and WBC, pt. 2

The funniest part of the tournament so far has to be Mark De Rosa. He told everyone that Team USA had "punched their ticket" to the quarterfinals before their shock loss to Team Italy! Team USA actually had to wait for the results of the Italy-Mexico clash in order to be sure they'd make it out of pool play. Team Mexico got whipped by the surprising Italy squad and that guaranteed a US appearance in the knockout round.

Logan Webb started for Team USA last night and was exactly Logan Webb. Mark De Rosa inexplicably yanked him after 4-2/3 scoreless. I thought it was very rude not to let Webb finish the frame. As it stands Logan's line for the tourney is 8-2/3 and only one run allowed (a solo homer to his first batter) along with 11 strikeouts and one walk. Anyway, I'm glad Mark De Rosa was not on the Giants managerial search radar. He should go back to babbling on TV. Team USA advanced to the semifinals by beating Team Canada and will face Team Dominican Republic tomorrow night. The Dominican club crushed Team Korea in a 10-0, 7-inning mercy rule win. They have the most formidable lineup and will be real test for Paul Skenes and the rest of the staff.

There should be a great game tonight at 6:00 p.m. PDT as Team Japan and Team Venezuela face each other in the quarterfinals. Japan is favored to make the finals and probably has the pitching edge. The Venezuelan squad is loaded however, and it should be a good match. (Italy v. Puerto Rico is the other game today.)

On the Giants side of things there seems to be a lot of pitching injuries at Spring Training. At the same time the pitching staff looks strong overall and there have been good results (15-4 record). Let's just hope everyone is healthy for the start of the season.

--M.C. 

Webb, WBC

I want to like the World Baseball Classic. The game, unfortunately, isn't really built for tournament play. Rather, it's a long-haul attritional battle. But the "one-and-done" nature of knockout contests certainly adds excitement. I don't have a dog in the fight. I don't really care about Team USA one way or the other. (The jingoistic coverage and "team of destiny" nonsense doesn't help.) I really like the international flavor of the event and like to see baseball from (weird?) places like Czechia and Israel.

But Team USA features Logan Webb. And Logan Webb is awesome so it was fun to watch the game last night. Brazil, despite being a large country, is a baseball minnow. The result was a sloppy 15-5 win for Team USA. Brazil pitchers walked 17 batters and hit two more! Team USA didn't have to do much as Team Brazil had a hard time throwing strikes and turned mini-rallies into routs.

The interesting thing about Team Brazil is its MLB connections. Their first batter was RF Lucas Ramirez, the son of Manny Ramirez. He hit a homer off Webb! That was quite a moment. Webb retired the next 12 batters on four grounders, six strikeouts, and two fly outs. Dante Bichette, Jr., son of Dante and brother to Bo, is Team Brazil's DH. And Jose Contreras' son Joseph, all of 17 and still in HS, is a pitcher. He got Aaron Judge (who homered in the 1st) to ground into a bases-loaded double play! Imagine being 17 and pitching in a game like that. I should mention that young Ramirez hit another homer in the game, that one off Gabe Speier (nephew of Chris).

So even though it was a mismatch and got rather ugly at the end it's clear there is a future for baseball in Brazil. The above-mentioned ballplayers have Brazilian wives, that's how their kids wound up on the team. Team Brazil also featured a Japanese manager and players of Japanese ancestry so it seems there is more than one big-time baseball nation involved in the program.

I hope the WBC continues to evolve and we see better baseball all over the world because of it. Unfortunately it seemed like a desultory crowd at the ballpark in Houston and there were plenty of empty seats, especially behind home plate. I'm sure Fox will fill them with the appropriate celebrities for the next match.

Finally, do we fully appreciate Logan Webb? He emerged in 2021 as a stud starter and made a name for himself that October with two superb games against the Dodgers in the playoffs. Since then he's made 132 starts and gone 54-43 for a .500 club, posting ERAs under 3.50 and FIPs under 3.20, all while leading MLB in innings pitched. The guy gets a lot of credit for being a "workhorse" which is true, but it obscures the fact that he's an "ace" as well! Logan Webb is about as close to a plug-and-play pitcher as there is in baseball. Mr. Automatic. The Giants have him signed for two more seasons after this one. He's at his peak—let's build a winner behind him.

Webb is supposed to pitch one more time. I imagine that would be the first game of the knockout round (assuming Team USA wins their group). That's Friday the 13th in Houston. It's on Fox and the only nice thing about Fox is we can get it off-the-air for free. (That's how we watch most of our baseball. I hate paying for TV.)

Anyway, it's still Spring Training. Go Giants!

--M.C.

26 for '26

There aren't any notable position battles for the 2026 San Francisco Giants Opening Day 26-man roster. The infield is set. Rafael Devers will man first base and Luis Arráez will handle second base. Willy Adames will be the shortstop and Matt Chapman gets the hot corner.

The outfield looks like Heliot Ramos, Harrison Bader, and Jung Hoo Lee going left-to-right.

 Patrick Bailey will be the catcher. Bryce Eldridge has the inside track on DH.

On the pitching side Logan Webb is the number one and Robbie Ray is the number two. The rest of the starting rotation will be Landen Roupp, Tyler Mahle, and Adrian Houser.

The bullpen has some possible openings. Two guys are signed: JT Brubaker and Sam Hentges. Ryan Walker and Erik Miller will be returning. Then there's José Buttó and Matt Gage who are out of options. Add in Joel Peguero and Spencer Bivens and that's eight guys. So right now Hayden Birdsong, Carson Whisenhunt, Carson Seymour, Blade Tidwell, Keaton Winn, Tristan Beck, Trevor McDonald, etc., etc. are all on the outside looking in. We won't know the final configuration for a few weeks, of course. I see that Birdsong is getting the first start of the Spring tomorrow.

There are some spots on the bench. Daniel Susac (brother of Andrew) seems to be the favorite for backup backstop. The fourth outfielder could be Drew Gilbert or Luis Matos or Will Brennan or Grant McCray, or  . . . ? Casey Schmitt could be the utility infielder and adding Jerar Encarnación to the list makes 26. Maybe we have a different catcher or it's Tyler Fitzgerald and/or Christian Koss somewhere.

Like I said there aren't really any interesting position battles. The bullpen is the most unsettled but there seems to be sufficient depth. They will leave some good arms in AAA and that should help when guys get hurt.

The 2026 Giants are largely set.

Whaddya think? Is it enough?

--M.C.