Who do the Giants need to make a decision about next?

In May, the Giants have DFA’d Lou Trivino and taken Jordan Hicks out of the rotation. Which scuffling player could be dealt with next?

Yesterday’s news about Jordan Hicks being moved out of the rotation and replaced with Hayden Birdsong probably comes as no surprise to most San Francisco Giants fans. I had my preference for giving him at least another start, but his struggles have been undeniable, and holding Birdsong back at this point doesn’t make a lot of sense.

The Giants used the first month of the season to basically serve as an extra month of scouting and here in May we’re seeing them deal with underperformance and missed evaluations with extreme moves. Lou Trivino hadn’t been with a team for a while and the team gambled on him — that didn’t work out. Jordan Hicks was the acquisition of a prior regime who was pushed beyond all reason last season and faltered, so the reasonable approach here in 2025 was to see if a clean start would produce results closer to the way he kicked off 2024 — that didn’t happen. The Giants have dealt with their two most underperforming players swiftly (Hicks had a -0.8 bWAR through 9 starts) and it’s reasonable to believe that trend will continue going forward. Should Roupp or Birdsong falter, there’s Kyle Harrison, for example.

Who’s next on the chopping block? The answer isn’t so easy. H

LaMonte Wade Jr. 1B/DH | -1.0 bWAR (.158/.261/.258 — 139 PA)

He’s the obvious answer to the article’s question and he’s the biggest problem the Giants’ lineup has going for it right now.

LWJ has been on my radar since the start of the season. He ended last season so poorly and yet a Wade/Flores platoon at first base made sense for a team that had a new front office presumably about to start a new or extend the current rebuild and were restricting payroll. But that only works if both parts of the platoon are useful, and Wade Jr. hasn’t been. Even Wade’s defense at first has been disastrous. FanGraphs has him at -5.1 Defensive Runs Above Average (basically, half a win) through just 40 games. For comparison, he’s a total -18.6 Defensive Runs Above Average the prior two seasons combined (252 games) and includes some outfield play. In just a fraction of the time and at only one position, he’s simply been bad — in fact, he’s gotten worse.

The solution? Unclear.

There is no obvious replacement. For one thing, you don’t want Wilmer Flores getting more reps at first base. Casey Schmitt is potentially weeks away as he works his way back from an oblique strain. Jerar Encarnacion’s rehab has hit a snag, though he still seems to be back on track to return at the end of the month. So, in terms of healthy players, there’s David Villar (another righty) and Jake Lamb down in Triple-A. Lamb’s last stint in the major leagues came in 2023 when, in his age-32 season, he sported a .612 OPS. He’s hitting .228/.331/.333 (.664 OPS) with the River Cats (142 PA) right now. He’s basically LaMonte Wade Jr. So, let’s discount the possibility that he’d be the next guy up.

Bryce Eldridge has 5 home runs in 21 games at Double-A Richmond now, along with a .293/.376/.560 line going, but with a couple of other penciled-in depth options ahead of him would the Giants really make such a drastic move? I doubt the team believes his time is now. On the other hand, can the Giants survive such poor play and/or can they afford to be down a left-handed bat in the lineup?

Wade’s softly hit double in last night’s fun win raised his line in the month of May (43 PA) to .225/.279/.300. Logically, he should be the next player to fall out of the team’s plans, and while the options after him are either injured or bad, literally anybody else might be a big improvement.

Luis Matos OF/DH | -0.5 bWAR (.167/.219/.350 — 64 PA)

He’s 4-for-22 in May with 2 of those hits being home runs and as the 4th outfielder it probably doesn’t make much sense to single out his performance. Then again, the Giants don’t have a lot of margin for error with this lineup and so having a struggling 23-year old take up space and being so inflexible, positionally, that it causes roster problems elsewhere puts him on the radar — at least, I’d hope it would. Wade can’t play the outfield and Matos can’t play the infield.

Now, we don’t know if the Giants think he’s all that big of a problem, but if they continue to follow the pattern of culling these negative value players, then he’s got to be on that list along with Wade, and if they still want to give Wade a few more weeks out of respect for him as a veteran, than a minor move to shore up the backup outfielder spot makes a lot of sense as the backup option.

The solution? Grant McCray.

Why him instead of say, Marco Luciano? Luciano is hitting .208/.339/.354 in May and is, at best, serviceable in the field (though appears to be improving). Meanwhile, McCray is 17-for-56 (.304 BA) in May for the River Cats. Friend of the site wrote all about his torrid numbers just a few days ago in his There R Giants newsletter. McCray has 4 doubles, a triple, and a homer and is 5/6 in stolen bases. His strikeouts to walk ratio is 2:1; and, we already know he’s got a plus glove.

Matos had such a great winter and spring that the Giants were right to put him on the roster. But they need at least average production everywhere to make their lineup competitive. McCray might not wind up being that player over the course of the season, but now might be the time to see what he can give them.

Ryan Walker CL | -0.4 bWAR (5.63 ERA 16 IP, 1.44 WHIP, 8.4 K/9, 3.9 BB/9)

Oh, you thought I was just going to stick with the lineup? Well, again, if the team is using May as a course correction month, then looking at all these negative value players is necessary. They’ve already sent Brett Wisely down (-0.3 bWAR), put Hicks in the bullpen, DFA’d Trivino after his 6.99 FIP through 12.1 IP, so let’s zero in on the “closer.”

I’m not suggesting that they’ll demote him to Triple-A, but a demotion in bullpen pecking order seems likely. He’s allowed 10 ER (11 R) in just 16 IP, a 5.63 ERA against a 3.10 FIP. His competition is fierce.

The solution? Closer by committee.

Not because I think Walker should be taken out of the closer role, but that the Giants have 3-4 pitchers who can close but have also demonstrated many times over the years healthy streaks of ineffectiveness or they’re Randy Rodriguez and it seems unlikely that Bob Melvin would elect to drop him into the role ahead of Doval, Rogers, or Walker later in the season — if he’s able to regain his form. Then again, maybe Melvin is more open-minded than I give him credit for and maybe he’s earned the clubhouse’s trust enough that it won’t be an issue.

Doval has certainly earned the right to get the next few chances, but he’s also pitching great in his current role, racking up 5 saves.

Still, this is one of the easiest problem spots to resolve, and I’m only putting it here to point out that Walker has been bad enough that he should be on the team’s task list.

The catcher position | -0.5 bWAR (.182/.235/.260 — 171 PA, +10.7 DRAA)

Patrick Bailey (10.2 Defensive Runs Above Average) and Sam Huff (0.5) have provided the Giants with a full win, statistically, thanks to their defense. Unfortunately, their combined offense has cost them a win, too. There’s a thought in sabermetrics that offense is twice as valuable as defense, which is what drove the Giants to sign Joc Pederson a few years ago and play him in the field. There is a point, though, where the hitting is such a negative that it wipes out the defensive value, and that’s where the Giants find themselves with the catching position.

The solution? Unclear.

Patrick Bailey is an elite defender who has the trust of the pitching staff, but he cannot hit. He is not a good hitter. He is a bad hitter. And this season, he has gotten much worse. Still, the Giants would be dumb to look to replace him. That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t try to fix the position. Sam Huff is hitting just .200/.250/.300 with a 43.2% strikeout rate. Bad!

In Triple-A, Max Stassi is hitting just .200/.333/.280, and the last time he was a league average hitter was in 2021. Logan Porter hasn’t done much better with Sacramento (.597 OPS). It’s slim pickings to fix a spot in the lineup that probably doesn’t need to be in the top 2 of priorities. I’d still put the first base/LWJ problem ahead of it and since there’s a more obvious solution to it, the 4th outfielder role, too.

McCray for Matos seems like the least amount of friction with the most potential for a tidy little upgrade in the short-term while the team waits for some injured players to get healthy and/or prospects to develop some more. The Giants have made sensible, conservative moves in the Executive Buster Posey era and so this theoretical move makes the most sense to me — but what do you think?