SF Giants are finally getting a look at their backup catcher of the future

With the season all but over for the SF Giants and the playoffs almost officially out of reach, they have turned the page to 2026 by inviting catcher Jesus Rodriguez to Oracle Park. He has a chance to be the team's backup catcher of the future.

The Giants acquired Rodriguez in a trade that sent Camilo Doval to the New York Yankees at the trade deadline. The 23-year-old has shown promise in the minor leagues so the hope is he could turn into something special with the Giants.

SF Giants bring intriguing catcher Jesus Rodriguez to Oracle Park

Now, Rodriguez is probably not going to play at all with the Giants in these final five games of the season because he was added to the team's taxi squad and not the active roster but that means he can still be around the team and get acclimated at the big league level.

He will be able to take batting practice with the team and serve as a bullpen catcher and get used to catching some of the various pitchers on the staff which will be useful going forward. He seemed like he could be a potential call-up late in the season but it would be asking a lot for such a young catcher to get up to speed on an entire pitching staff so quickly at the end of the season.

Manager Bob Melvin was asked about Rodriguez and said that he feels he could definitely factor into next year's plans at catcher. He noted that Rodriguez was the guy president of baseball operations Buster Posey was really excited about in the Doval trade so he seems like a guy who the Giants are quite high on.

Rodriguez's reputation is that his bat is ahead of his catching skills as of right now. He was not exclusively a catcher for the Yankees but that will be his primary focus with the Giants so the hope is he can get up to speed on that in the offseason and be in a good spot by spring training.

He has put up solid career numbers in the minors as his career slash line is .309/.395/.453 with 32 homers and 226 runs batted in. With Triple-A Sacramento this season he slashed .322/.399/.401 with two homers and 16 RBI.

The Giants have struggled the find an adequate backup catcher for Patrick Bailey these past few seasons. The plan was to have Tom Murphy as his backup but that signing has proved to be a disaster. There is an alternate universe where Joey Bart is still on the team, but in our current universe Sam Huff, Max Stassi, and Andrew Knizner have all served as backup catcher this season and have been serviceable behind the plate without doing much of anything offensively.

The hope is that Rodriguez can turn into that offense-first catcher who can complement the defense-first Bailey behind the plate which was the thinking with the Murphy signing. It is nice for Rodriguez that he gets a little taste of the big leagues at the end of this year before he will likely be competing for the backup catcher role in spring training next season.

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