3 SF Giants players on the 40-man roster who are out of minor league options

Buster Posey made a public comment last week to Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic in which he said, “we feel pretty set with the roster the way it is right now”. Whether that’s a bluff or truly there are no more external additions in the offing, a few SF Giants players will be entering camp without any minor league options.

3 SF Giants players on the 40-man roster who are out of minor league options

Each player gets three minor league options. Option year is probably a more correct term as players can be optioned as many as five times in a season. Being optioned does not necessarily burn an option year.

If a player spends at least 20 days in the minors after being optioned, then he loses that option year. In rare instances, players can be awarded a fourth option year. Randy Rodríguez looks to be a beneficiary of this as he still has one minor league option remaining after using one in each of the past three seasons.

Once a player is out of options, the clock begins to tick. This is why it would behoove the Giants to get as much of an evaluation as possible on Luis Matos and Marco Luciano this season. The Giants want to avoid being in a position next year where either is out of options without a defined role.

Players without options who are enter spring training could be playing for a different team by the end of camp. That is because they need to make the team or be placed on waivers. The good news is that this is a problem for all 30 teams, so the beginning of the season is the best time to sneak a player through waivers.

1. Jerar Encarnación

Encarnación got into 35 games as a Giant last year, two seasons after making his major league debut with the Marlins in 2022. He showed enough promise to work his way into the potential DH mix for this season, but not so much that an external replacement is out of the question.

He and Wilmer Flores, barring a late-career resurgence from Wilmer or an unexpected step forward from Encarnación, make the Giants’ projected DH production among the weakest in the league. The right-handed bat's .248/.277/.425 line with San Francisco last season was six percent below league-average per wRC+, and that .277 on-base percentage looks especially untenable.

Encarnación was much better in his short showing with Sacramento, however, putting up an excellent .352/.438/.616 line in a near-identical 33 games. The Giants will be closely following his spring production, and fans should be too. He will need to hit, a lot, to carve out a role with this team.