SF Giants’ roster for 2022 projected

By the time the 2022 season rolls around, the SF Giants might be ready to contend once again.

The SF Giants opted to hold onto their top trade chips last summer amid an unexpected hot streak.

However, even in the midst of a surprise wild-card push, the focus remained on the team’s long-term outlook and improving the roster’s future outlook.

They eventually cooled off on the other side of a 19-6 month of July to finish 77-85, which marked the club’s third straight losing season.

Given the current makeup of the roster and overall talent gap between the Giants and the rest of the NL West, a rebuild is inevitable, and that’s been the case for some time now.

The question is when they might be able to make a realistic push back up the standings.

The 2022 season might be the most realistic target date.

So why 2022?

By that time, the bloated salaries of Jeff Samardzija (after 2020), Buster Posey (after 2021), Brandon Belt (after 2021), Brandon Crawford (after 2021) and Johnny Cueto (after 2021) will all be off the books.

Those five players are set to earn a combined $95.4 million in 2020, which accounts for roughly 64 percent of the team’s projected payroll, according to Spotrac.

So with that target date of 2022 in mind, we set out to build the best-case scenario roster for the Giants heading into that season.

Prospects were projected into MLB role, while predictions were made on potential free-agent targets to fill in the holes around the in-house talent.

Let’s get to it!