The Giants’ all right-handed and largely inexperienced bench got its first showcase yesterday.
The offseason kicked off with San Francisco Giants legend Will Clark going on a tirade about Farhan Zaidi’s failures as the President of Baseball Operations, including an accusation that he made the lineups and not manager Bob Melvin. This seemed to be a talking point that stuck, so I’ll draft off that to kickoff this piece.
In yesterday’s loss to the Philadelphia Phillies, Bob Melvin started all four of his bench players: backup catcher Sam Huff, infielders Casey Schmitt and Christian Koss, and outfielder Luis Matos. They went a combined 1-for-14 with 1 walk and 7 strikeouts (part of starter Cristopher Sanchez’s career-high 12 strikeouts). In the early season, they’re 13-for-80 with 1 HR, 3 2B, 4 BB, and 25 K.
This all right-handed quartet lacks experience and, let’s be honest, major league caliber skills, and while it’s great that the Giants split a tough 4-game road series and even kept the game kinda close despite a 5-run first inning by starter Jordan Hicks, no reasonable person could argue that the Giants fielded their best lineup — even on a getaway day.
Of course, the Giants’ bench has been an open question all offseason, and I’d argue that was still the case with Jerar Encarnacion in the picture. It’s the least experienced bench in the division by far. My back of the envelope math, based on Baseball Reference’s starting lineup/bench breakdowns and some light editorializing by me (for example, Freddie Freeman is the starting first baseman for the Dodgers, usually, but Enrique Hernandez has received the bulk of playing time there — in any case, Hernandez is a veteran bench bat):
Dodgers: Enrique Hernandez, Christ Taylor, Austin Barnes, Miguel Rojas (13,349 PA)
Padres: Jose Iglesias, Brandon Lockridge, Yuli Gurriel, Martin Maldonado (12,046 PA)
Dbacks: Jake McCarthy, Randal Grichuk, Jose Herrera, Garret Hampson (8,006 PA)
Rockies: Mickey Moniak, Zac Veen, Jacob Stallings, Sean Bouchard (3,076 PA)
Giants: Luis Matos, Casey Schmitt, Sam Huff, Christian Koss (1,098 PA)
In the Giants’ case, Matos (435 PA) and Schmitt (414 PA) really skew the sample, too. In isolation, a case can be made for each player’s inclusion on the roster. Matos had that great week last May. Schmitt had that hot week in May 2023. Both players’ fortunes stumbled and fell at many points following these bursts of performance but towards the end of last season and into the winter, they reminded the organization that they do have some game. Schmitt’s also supposed to be an exemplary defender, but he’s blocked (permanently) by Matt Chapman at third and seemingly for now at second base by Tyler Fitzgerald (and Christian Koss) and so he’s simply an above average defender at first base — who can’t hit?
Sam Huff and Christian Koss are both great Spring Training stories of guys who put in the work and earned their shot. Huff has the former top prospect sheen on him, of course, but also a .258/.313/.455 line across four major league seasons (214 PA) as a backup catcher — very worthy of a roster spot, I’d say, after proving himself in camp. Meanwhile, Koss is just one of those gamers who made a big leap at the plate last year in Triple-A after the Giants traded for him (.299/.376/.496).
Again, in isolation, you can rationalize, justify — legitimize — each of these players. Taken together, though, and then inserted into the same starting lineup? This doesn’t look like a bench with depth or much upside and furnishes the opposing pitchers with easy outs.
The hope is that Luis Matos turns into the outfield version of Luis Arraez? Okay, but if that fails, could he stumble down into Austin Slater 2.0? That’s a very reasonable ceilings if he’s not going to break out of the 4th outfielder role, which would be very hard for him to do if he’s not given a lot of time in the starting lineup.
For Casey Schmitt, is the hope that he becomes the next Juan Uribe? Well, in order to do that, he’ll need a lot of starts on most likely bad teams to build up the requisite experience so that his power catches up with his lack of contact and makes his roster spot worthwhile.
Christian Koss is, essentially, the 26th man on the roster, who seems to be the 3rd generation behind Tyler Fitzgerald and Casey Schmitt.
Sam Huff is the backup catcher, and if Tom Murphy was in this spot — or even Max Stassi — I’m not sure that we’re talking about significant improvement. I would not put the 20 plate appearance sample of the fill-in backup catcher front and center for the purposes of this analysis.
What I am doing though is examining the process that got us here. I don’t think it’s the case that the Giants ignored the bench. The Giants were said to have checked in on Randal Chrichuk this past offseason. Obviously, Tom Murphy would be the most experienced bat on the bench if he were there instead of Huff (1,055 plate appearances). Encarnacion seemed ready to hit the ground running despite his limited MLB time (200 PA), so I’m willing to say that injuries have dimmed what would have been a slightly more interesting — and more immediately helpful — version of the bench.
But I also look at how it’s an incredibly cheap bench. The four I’ve cited are making the league minimum ($760,000-$780,000). Now let’s compare that to the division:
Dodgers: Enrique Hernandez, Chris Taylor, Austin Barnes, Miguel Rojas — $28 million (lol)
Padres: Jose Iglesias, Brandon Lockridge, Yuli Gurriel, Martin Maldonado — $7.6 million
Dbacks: Jake McCarthy, Randal Grichuk, Jose Herrera, Garret Hampson — $5.076 million
Rockies: Mickey Moniak, Zac Veen, Jacob Stallings, Sean Bouchard — $4.775 million
Giants: Luis Matos, Casey Schmitt, Sam Huff, Christian Koss — $3.1 million
Even if we add in Tom Murphy’s $4 million salary, the Giants rise to just third on this list in cost, but remain last in experience (1,919 PA).
In prior years, the bench wasn’t a discrete entity. The lineup was more like an ecosystem. That’s been paved over by a more traditional view of roster management, and I’m not here to question the validity of that — the Giants are playing quite well, if you hadn’t noticed. I am even halfway out the door with the philosophy of building roster depth from the bottom. But here, the team seems to taken a firm side on the matter — the bench is there to spell the starters and nothing else. I can’t help but see the Giants’ cost cutting measures in effect here.
Yes, injuries complicate the matter, as they often do, and the carousel of Wilmer Flores, LaMonte Wade Jr., and eventually Jerar Encarnacion will be a tricky one to ride, as they’re all, effectively, first basemen/DH. And if you add Tom Murphy to that mix I think that pushes a big problem in to a massive one. But at least with that trio you have some dangerous bats or at least some above average pitch selection. Still weird that there’s only one left-handed hitter amongst all options and he’s more or less a starter.
I must note that ZiPS projects this bunch to combine for maybe 2 fWAR with only Schmitt and Matos closest to “replacement-level.” I don’t take comfort in that, but others might see no sub-replacement players on the roster as a win. Personally, I think the current bench is a group of free swinging defensive replacements, and while that’s not all that important now while the Giants are winning, it’s definitely a soft spot to keep an eye on this summer.
Thank goodness Bob Melvin has the freedom to put all four of them into the lineup whenever he wants!