4 difficult roster decisions the Giants must address ASAP

The San Francisco Giants have put themselves in a great position with their strong play of late. Despite having to deal with their fair share of injuries and playing in a very tough NL West this year, the Giants find themselves in second place and just 2.5 games back of the first place Diamondbacks and firmly in charge of their own destiny in the wild card race.

It wasn't that long ago that things were looking pretty dire for the Giants in 2023. They had missed out on all of their big time free agent targets like Aaron Judge and Carlos Correa (sure looks like they made the right choice with the latter($), though) and the Dodgers and Diamondbacks got off to hot starts. All of that meant it felt like the Giants were an incomplete team getting left behind.

However, times have changed and thanks to a stitched together rotation and flat out awesome performances from the offense and bullpen, San Francisco has gone 16-6 in the month of June and are in the thick of the playoff race which means they need to start planning for the second half and trying to cement their spot as a playoff team.

Here are the difficult roster decisions the Giants need to make now

The next month could very easily decide the NL West between figuring out which players to cut bait with, who to promote from the minor leagues, and who to trade for with the trade deadline approaching fast. This Giants roster is far from perfect and while they probably won't be able to get everything they want, here are the four roster decisions that they need to sort out ASAP.

The Giants need to call up Kyle Harrison

It is hardly a secret that the Giants' biggest need at the moment is at starting pitcher. San Francisco has made things work in the wake of some injuries. With Ross Stripling getting activated from the IL and Alex Cobb looking like he is close to returning, reinforcements are coming to help out. However, that doesn't change the fact that the first thing the Giants need to do is promote Kyle Harrison to the big leagues.

Harrison is one of the best pitching prospects of all of baseball and while his last start was a rough one, he had given up a total of four earned runs in his last five starts before that while striking out a ton of batters. Harrison's stuff is simply tremendous from the left side especially with his weird arm slot and he is already stretched out to 80+ pitches. Kyle has been so good, in fact, that he was just selected to the 2023 Futures Game along with another Giants pitching prospect Carson Whisenhunt.

Whisenhunt's debut will probably have to wait until at least 2024, but Harrison's ability to miss bats is needed in the big leagues. There are certain to some speedbumps along the way, but getting Harrison access to big league coaching and resources should pay dividends for him. At the end of the day, he is probably better than any option the Giants could realistically find on the trade market to fill an obvious need.

Reinforcing the bullpen needs to be a priority for the Giants

Every team that is in contention is going to be looking for bullpen help and San Francisco is no exception. The Giants' bullpen is no exception because while they have been very good, they have also been used a lot and Luke Jackson hitting the injured list with a lower back strain is going to hurt their depth in the short term.

An emphasis on bringing in quality, fresh arms for the bullpen has some added importance with the team's shortcomings in the rotation and the chance they they will promote Harrison. In an ideal world, the injured guys coming back and Harrison would be able to cover a ton of innings, but San Francisco can't bet on that happening.

Fortunately, bullpen arms are plentiful at the trade deadline. The Giants should be looking to swing big here with guys like Aroldis Chapman, Scott Barlow, and Keynan Middleton being names that they will hopefully be looking at.