SF Giants DFA once-promising infielder to make room for even more pitching depth

The SF Giants couldn't get any offense going in the first series of the year, so naturally the team swung a trade for...a reliever? That's right, the Giants made a trade with the Detroit Tigers for right-handed reliever Dylan Smith. In a corresponding move, the Giants designated once-promising infielder Tyler Fitzgerald for assignment.

Good news first – the Giants' bullpen, which was considered to be their greatest weakness heading into the season, held up pretty well against the vaunted New York Yankees lineup in the opening series.

The rest of the team, however, didn’t fare so great. In fact, it may have been the most humiliating beginning to a season the Giants have ever suffered in their incredibly long history. They were shut out in both of the first two games of the season for the first time in franchise history and only managed one run cumulatively over the entire three-game series.

Dylan Smith is the latest addition to Giants' collection of bullpen depth

Even though the Giants looked absolutely helpless in all 27 innings, one series is still an extremely small sample size, and it’s a long season. That’s probably why Buster Posey and Zack Minasian still seemed to be more concerned about buttressing their pitching depth than making further lineup upgrades.

They teamed up to make a trade with former front-office exec Scott Harris, now president of baseball operations for the Detroit Tigers. Dylan Smith, a right-hander who was designated for assignment by Detroit last week, now heads to the Giants in exchange for cash considerations per Alex Pavolvic of NBC Sports Bay Area.

Smith, a 25-year-old reliever who still comes with a few minor league options, has only thrown 13 innings at the big-league level, all of which came after being added to the Tigers’ 40-man roster last May. Incredibly, he only struck out four batters while walking five in that sample, but it was only his first taste of the big leagues.

In his 39.2 minor league innings last year he managed to strike out 57, so hopefully it’s just a small sample blip, which the Giants are already painfully familiar with. His 2.27 ERA in that minor league work, along with a 1.38 ERA in the big leagues (attached to a 4.37 FIP, though) offer plenty of room for promise as well.

46 of Smith’s 78 career minor league appearances were starts, so even though he hasn’t made any starts in the majors yet, he could eventually fulfill a swingman role not unlike what Trevor McDonald, Hayden Birdsong, Blake Tidwell and Keaton Winn all could theoretically offer. He’ll start off in Sacramento and fight with McDonald, Tidwell and others for the coveted next-man-up label should an injury in San Francisco present an opportunity later.

Before Smith’s arrival, there was no room on the 40-man roster, which leads us to more bad news. Tyler Fitzgerald, who was at one point considered the Giants’ second baseman of the future and also has experience at second, third and center field, was designated for assignment on Monday to make room for Smith. His loss further depletes position player depth that also took a hit when Luis Matos was traded to Milwaukee for cash considerations.

Fitzgerald has struggled mightily with striking out, with his 30.4% career rate around eight percent higher than league average. However, he’s also just two years removed from an impressive 2.7 WAR-season in 2024, and his positional versatility combined with an intriguing power-speed skillset makes his potential departure from the organization an especially tough one.

In the short-term, the Giants are fairly well covered at second base even in his absence, with Luis Arraez, Casey Schmitt and Christian Koss all active on the 26-man roster. Some of the San Francisco’s top organizational prospects, like Josuar Gonzalez, Gavin Kilen, and Luis Hernández, are all middle infielders by trade as well, so it’s clear the front office felt that keeping Fitzgerald around as depth was a luxury more than a necessity.

In all, the Giants were busy today as they lost position player depth but gained some reliever depth. Maybe that will prove to be a prudent move in the long run.