SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — When the Giants wrapped up Farhan Zaidi’s first spring with the club in March, 2019, the organization’s top baseball executive made an under-the-radar trade that went largely unnoticed.
The decision to trade pitching prospect, Tyler Herb, to the Baltimore Orioles allowed the Giants to clear a 40-man roster spot and acquire an outfielder who would provide important depth at the Triple-A level. The outfielder the Giants added had six years of minor league experience, rather pedestrian career statistics and a last name that created a bit of buzz.
No Giants fans knew of Mike Yastrzemski, but most had at least heard of his grandfather Carl, a Hall of Fame outfielder who spent 23 seasons with the Boston Red Sox.
Yastrzemski wasn’t a top prospect and wasn’t necessarily on track to eventually play in the big leagues, but upon arriving at Triple-A Sacramento, he forced his way up. The left-handed hitting Vanderbilt product slugged 12 home runs and had 24 extra-base hits in 40 games with the River Cats before the Giants gave him his first big league opportunity.
Giants fans know the rest of the story.
As Yastrzemski, who finished eighth in National League MVP voting last year, returns for his third season with the Giants, the club has a few players hoping to follow in his footsteps.
How does one go from an unheralded talent with a questionable major league future to a full-time starter? Playing for a Giants franchise led by Zaidi seems like a strong starting point.
Outside of Yastrzemski, the Giants have acquired 2020 Silver Slugger Award winner Donovan Solano on a minor league deal and one of their top power-hitters, Alex Dickerson, on a waiver claim that required the club to part with a low-level pitching prospect.
This spring, two other players added in low-profile transactions, LaMonte Wade Jr. and Jason Vosler, have realistic paths to enjoying breakout seasons.
The Giants traded right-handed reliever Shaun Anderson in exchange for Wade, a left-handed hitter with fewer than 100 major league at-bats, in early February. Wade wasn’t immediately viewed as a candidate for the 2021 Opening Day roster, but with the ability to play all three outfield positions and a discerning eye at the plate, it’s increasingly clear the Giants think he can help them this year.
“Any time that you can play multiple positions, you have a better chance to help the team win and it also helps you to get into the lineup,” Wade said Sunday.
Wade helped his cause in a 9-4 win over the Cincinnati Reds Sunday as the outfielder put on a first baseman’s mitt and started at the position in Goodyear. Wade had no trouble acclimating to a position he first became familiar with in college, but his defense wasn’t the reason the Giants were thrilled with his play against the Reds.
With a walk, a stolen base and a towering home run to deep right field, Wade showed off the discerning eye, the speed and the power that could make him a weapon against right-handed pitchers this year.
“I was looking for something out over the plate I could handle and put it in play hard,” Wade said. “I feel like (the pitcher) got ahead in the count and I took a pitch I should have swung at, so I was just trying to get back at being aggressive in the zone.”
Wade’s career .389 on-base percentage at the minor league level is an eye-popping number that would jump out to any front office executive or major league manager, so it’s no surprise the Giants are giving a player who is hard to get out an extended opportunity to win a job this spring.
The bigger surprise is that Vosler, a career minor leaguer with numbers similar to the ones Yastrzemski posted in the Orioles farm system, has emerged as a “hidden gem” candidate.
With two more hits on Sunday, the former Cubs and Padres prospect is now 8-for-16 this spring with a 1.313 OPS. He’s played third base, second base, first base and left field and Giants manager Gabe Kapler recently said the club is exploring every opportunity to increase his versatility.
“With Vos, we know he’s most comfortable at third base and first base, but he has a history of playing up the middle and again, we’re staying with the theme of creating as much versatility as possible and giving as many paths to our major league roster,” Kapler said.
Vosler’s career .255 minor league average and .428 minor league slugging percentage are eerily similar to the .263 and .441 numbers Yastrzemski posted before arriving in the big leagues. Yastrzemski’s numbers actually looked even more like Vosler’s until he began torching Triple-A pitching in 2019, but the Giants were never overly concerned about his capabilities and ceiling.
Zaidi has said Giants scouts reported Yastrzemski was athletic, versatile and consistently able to hit the ball in the air, which are some of the same attributes the organization saw in Vosler before signing him to a major league deal and rewarding him with a 40-man roster spot this offseason.
Expecting players such as Wade or Vosler with limited or no major league reps to quickly become productive players for the Giants is a stretch, but it’s not out of the question. Zaidi has a long track record of finding diamonds in the rough and while there are less opportunities to give inexperienced players now that the overall quality of the Giants’ roster has improved, the ones who do receive a chance will have to work hard to earn it.
Whether Wade and Vosler open the year in Triple-A or the majors doesn’t necessarily matter, either. As Yastrzemski, Solano and Dickerson proved in 2019, a player isn’t required to start on Opening Day or even during the first month of a season to have a significant impact.
