Locked On Giants – Daily Podcast On The San Francisco Giants

On today's Locked On Giants podcast, host Ben Kaspick takes a stab at predicting the San Francisco Giants' 26-man Opening Day roster. First, he dives into the position player mix. As Farhan Zaidi said when he met with the media on Thursday, there isn't very much drama on the position player side if Brandon Belt and Evan Longoria are healthy enough to make the team. Up and down the roster, the Giants have quality depth, and they even have some really good options in the upper minors. One area where they're thin, however, is at shortstop. Zaidi said the team expects to add upper minors shortstop depth in the coming days.

On the pitcher side, there are a lot more question marks. And unlike in years past, the questions do not stem from a lack of depth; in fact, the opposite is true. In the rotation, the club has Kevin Gausman, Johnny Cueto, and Anthony DeSclafani as locks, with Logan Webb seemingly in line to make the Opening Day rotation after his dominant spring. Alex Wood and Aaron Sanchez should make the roster if they're healthy, but that may not be the case. In the bullpen, there are four locks, and then a number of ways things could go. They have lots of optionable relievers, and lots of qualified non-roster invitees. It's anyone's guess how it will all shake out.

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On today's Locked On Giants podcast, host Ben Kaspick catches you up on all the latest with the San Francisco Giants. Manager Gabe Kapler finally named an opening day starter, and it was the right choice. Kevin Gausman will take the mound next Thursday night against the Mariners, one week from today. Johnny Cueto will start the second game.

Ben also dives into last night's televised game against the San Diego Padres. Anthony DeSclafani was on the mound for the Giants, and he pitched beautifully. He ended up with eight strikeouts in four-plus innings, featuring three really good pitches: a firm fastball, a breaking ball, and a changeup. Could DeSclafani become a breakout performer in 2021 like Gausman did in 2020? Also in this game, Mike Yastrzemski, Donovan Solano, and Austin Slater hit home runs. Ben talks about how the Giants' offense is one of the most underrated in the game.

Finally, Ben discusses the Giants' flurry of roster moves yesterday, with the optioning of Jason Vosler being the most surprising. We typically read too much into opening day rosters, however, and Giants fans should be aware that Vosler is very likely to get a real opportunity at some point this year. It could even be in the opening series if the Giants have to place Brandon Belt, who's been behind all spring as he recovered from mono, on the injured list.

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On today's Locked On Giants podcast, host Ben Kaspick talks about the latest with the San Francisco Giants. Logan Webb continued his stellar spring, pitching another five scoreless innings with seven strikeouts. On the whole this camp, Webb has pitched 11 innings and has 17 strikeouts against just one walk, and he has yet to allow a run. He's making a very strong case to open the year in the Giants' starting rotation, and his development is another testament to the team's newfound ability under Gabe Kapler and his staff to get the most out of their players.

Another example of that is Mauricio Dubón, who has transformed from a wild free swinger into a much more disciplined hitter in the past year. The trend was evident in the middle of last season, and he's carried it over into spring with a stellar strikeout-to-walk ratio.

The Giants' prospects have also been impressive this camp. It's exciting that the Giants can feature a pretty good major league lineup in spring games, followed up by a deep group of top prospects like Joey Bart, Heliot Ramos, Marco Luciano, Hunter Bishop, Will Wilson, Patrick Bailey, and Logan Wyatt. In fact, yesterday MLB Pipeline named the Giants' position player prospect group as the second best in all of baseball. The Giants' future is starting to look very bright.

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On today's Locked On Giants podcast, host Ben Kaspick answers questions from listeners about the state of the San Francisco Giants. Among the questions asked and answered are: I know we think Farhan Zaidi is a brilliant President of Baseball Operations here on this podcast. But surely there’s a move he did that you didn’t like as much, or a move that you thought should have happened that did not (free agent signing, etc). What would you say is one criticism that you have of Farhan as of right now? Your odds for the Giants going over .500? What do you think about the strength of the Giants' schedule this year (besides having to play the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres a lot)? Are there stretches that stand out as particularly unlucky/brutal, or "must win" months? Who are we moving at the trade deadline? Could it be Kevin Gausman, Anthony DeSclafani, Alex Wood, or Aaron Sanchez? Are any of the veteran players on expiring contracts (Brandon Belt, Brandon Crawford, Buster Posey, Johnny Cueto) candidates for trades to contenders near the deadline? What would you say are the Dodgers' and Padres' biggest weaknesses, and do any of the Giants' offseason acquisitions stand out as particularly good fits to match up against/exploit them?

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On today's Locked On Giants podcast, host Ben Kaspick talks about the latest with the San Francisco Giants. On Saturday, Steven Duggar was optioned and Heliot Ramos was among four who were reassigned to minor league camp. Duggar's future with the organization has to be in doubt, as he once again won't be given a major league opportunity to start the season. This is Duggar's last year with minor league options. Ramos was never going to make the opening day roster, so it's not surprising that he was reassigned to minor league camp.

Also, the bullpen competition heated up over the weekend. The Giants have plenty of choices for their 'pen, with only four players essentially guaranteed a spot. They have many solid relievers with minor league options on their 40-man roster, and they also have numerous non-roster invitees in camp who have been impressive. Zack Littell, Jimmie Sherfy, and Nick Tropeano were very impressive in a televised game on Sunday. It remains to be seen if any non-roster invitees will break camp with the club. Unfortunately, we learned over the weekend that the Giants' Rule 5 pick Dedniel Nuñez will have Tommy John surgery.

We also learned this weekend that manager Gabe Kapler is close to naming an opening day starter. Ben passionately asserts that the assignment should go to Kevin Gausman, who is clearly the team's best pitcher. Some have speculated that it could be Johnny Cueto, but that simply wouldn't make sense. Cueto had the worst ERA of any qualified starter in 2020, and his best days are clearly behind him. Expect an announcement from Kapler this week.

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On today's Locked On Giants podcast, host Ben Kaspick answers questions from listeners about the state of the San Francisco Giants. In a special bonus, he shares an audio clip from his Q&A session from Thursday on the Locker Room app. Among the questions asked and answered on today's show are: How concerned are you about the Giants' defense? What is the identity and direction of this team? Are they a possible underdog for the last NL Wild Card spot? Looking ahead to next offseason, is the expected number of "holes to fill" a legit concern? What is your personal power ranking of next year's shortstop free agent class (assuming market value)? Does Jason Vosler make the Opening Day roster?

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On today's Locked On Giants podcast, host Ben Kaspick is joined by special guest Millard Thomas in Part Two of their conversation about the state of the San Francisco Giants and Arizona Diamondbacks. On today's show, Millard asks Ben questions about the Giants. He asks Ben to grade the Giants' offseason, tell the backstory of Giants breakout star Mike Yastrzemski, and dive into Kevin Gausman's dominant 2020 season. The two also discuss how both the Giants and the D-backs could be better than people expect, and that these two teams look like they're in a battle for third place in a loaded National League West, which also features the juggernaut Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres.

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On today's Locked On Giants podcast, host Ben Kaspick is joined by special guest Millard Thomas of Locked On Diamondbacks in the latest Division Day. Ben and Millard discuss Madison Bumgarner's alarming first year in Arizona, what went wrong for a D-backs team that entered 2020 with high expectations, and what to expect from Bumgarner and the team in 2021. They also discuss the division as a whole, including weighing in on whether the San Diego Padres' stellar offseason was enough to perhaps unseat the Los Angeles Dodgers atop the NL West. Finally, they discuss which of their two teams is better, and how they seeing the final standings playing out.

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On today's Locked On Giants podcast, host Ben Kaspick talks about the latest with the San Francisco Giants. Starter Alex Wood is going to see a spine specialist to evaluate his injured back. While not entirely surprising, this is not good news for the Giants, whose starting rotation consists of a number of high injury risk players. However, the Giants are deep enough to withstand multiple injuries, and first in line appears to be Logan Webb, who has pitched beautifully this spring. Gabe Kapler said Webb and Aaron Sanchez are on track to be in the Giants rotation to start the season.

Yesterday was also cut day at Giants camp. The team optioned or reassigned 25 players out of the approximately 75 in camp. Despite being demoted, these players were still around major league camp because there is no minor league camp right now due to Covid-19. One notable omission from the cut list was Heliot Ramos, who has had a spectacular spring. There's almost zero chance Ramos opens the season on the major league roster, so this appears to be a symbolic move more than anything.

Ben also introduces Hot Take Tuesday. In the very first edition of the new segment, Ben explains why he thinks the Giants are an 86-win team—much better than most projection systems think they are. He references his major "hot takes" from last year, when he predicted that the Giants would be much better than expected, and that Kevin Gausman would out-pitch Madison Bumgarner. Both of those predictions proved to be very much correct, but only time will tell if this year's prediction comes true.

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On today's Locked On Giants podcast, host Ben Kaspick talks about three things we learned this weekend with the San Francisco Giants. The first thing we learned is that Logan Webb is making a very strong case that he belongs in a major league rotation. In his outing on Saturday, he struck out six Cleveland Indians in three innings of work, allowing just one hit, one walk, and zero runs. He's struck out 10 and walked one in six innings of work this spring. Webb looks to be on the outside looking in to the Giants' starting rotation, but Alex Wood is dealing with a stiff back and Webb could be first in line if a starter goes down with an injury or underperforms.

The second thing we learned is that Brandon Belt had Covid in January and mononucleosis in recent weeks. Belt was absent from spring workouts for weeks, and we finally learned the extent of his illnesses. Thankfully, Belt is feeling better and even got up to 17 mph on a treadmill in recent days.

Finally, the third thing we learned this weekend is that Aaron Sanchez wants to pitch in a spring game. He said he expected to appear in his first game on Sunday, but the Giants had him pitch in a simulated game instead. There seemed to be some communication issues, but nothing major. Sanchez was reportedly throwing the ball well in the sim game, and he hopes to get into a real spring game sometime this week.

Ben sneaks in one more thing we learned this weekend: not that it necessarily means anything, but the Giants lead all teams with a .383 on-base percentage this spring. They've drawn the most walks (69) and have the second-most hits (116) through 14 games.

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