Ready or Not, Here We Go!

Feb 7, 2026 | Latest Post, Out of Left Field

by DrLefty

Well, it’s Super Bowl weekend, and for baseball fans, that means just one thing: Pitchers and catchers report soon! This year, because of the WBC, reporting dates are earlier than usual. For the Giants, the magic starts happening less than 48 hours after the Super Bowl, on Tuesday, February 10. Position players on WBC teams (see Greek Giant’s latest post for a rundown) report on February 12, and the first full squad workout is Feb. 15. Then, just two short weeks from today, the first Cactus League action will commence! (And we have the Winter Olympics from Italy to keep us entertained between the Super Bowl and baseball games.)

Last week’s Out of Left Field focused on the addition of new outfielder Harrison Bader. I ended the column thus:

Perhaps there will be more news about the “balls in the air” that Posey mentioned in the call with reporters yesterday. Or we’ll see a list of non-roster invitees to spring training. Maybe we’ll even find out who all is on the coaching staff! It could be an eventful week.

So it turned out that all of those guesses came to pass. Later that same day, the news broke that the Giants had signed Luis Arráez to be their second baseman in 2026. It’s hard to say whether this specific move was a “ball in the air” last Friday or if it was just a pivot when the Giants’ various efforts to trade for a 2B came to naught, but–it’s definitely a development. Greek Giant also covered this news earlier this week, and it was shortly followed by the Mariners successfully obtaining one of the Giants’ rumored trade targets (Brendan Donovan). I’ll just say that I’m bullish on this signing.  Arráez brings something to the Giants’ lineup that they’ve been missing. Yes, I’m concerned about the defense, but I’m also hopeful that Arráez, who chose the Giants because they agreed to let him play 2B, will work hard in this platform year, and he has one of the best infield coaches ever to work with in Ron Washington. We’ll get back to the coaching staff before I sign out. I do take the point that it’s reminiscent of the signing of Jorge Soler before the 2024 season–kind of an odd fit–but since it’s a one-year deal and not three years like Soler’s was, I don’t see how it can hurt that much. If it turns out to be a defensive disaster, there is a Plan B (i.e., Casey Schmitt or Christian Koss).

The Giants did, as I guessed, release both their list of non-roster invitees to spring training along with (finally) the announcement of their full coaching staff. With camp opening in Scottsdale in a matter of days, this hardly makes me Nostradamus or even Punxsutawney Phil, but since both pieces of news are interesting, we’ll take them in the order that they became public.

 

Non-Roster Invitees

The Giants released a list of 19 non-roster players who have been invited to spring training. Bear in mind that anyone already on the 40-man is automatically included.

This list isn’t all that exciting, given that the top prospect (Bryce Eldridge) is on the 40-man roster and most of their other top prospects are too young or too new to the organization to be included in major league camp yet. One notable exception is Bo Davidson, currently listed by MLB Pipeline as the Giants’ #5 prospect. Davidson is interesting for several reasons. First, as an undrafted free agent who has made it this high on a prospect list, he’s already a success story. Second, because he finished the 2025 season in AA, he’s not all that far from the majors if he does well this year–and the Giants have very little depth in the outfield in the upper minors. The addition of Bader means that the Giants have their three starting outfielders set, but behind them at the moment are Drew Gilbert, Grant McCray, Luis Matos, and Jerar Encarnacion, and I guess you could add Tyler Fitzgerald, who’s been moved around as a super-utility type. Matos and Encarnacion are both out of options, and it seems likely that one or both of them may not make it out of camp on the Giants’ 40-man roster. So if you fast forward to the end of March, you could, for example, have Gilbert as the fourth outfielder, McCray back in AAA, and either Fitzgerald or Encarnacion on the bench. But if someone gets injured, there’s not a lot in AAA behind them, with last year’s outfielders Wade Meckler and Marco Luciano having moved on to other organizations. This is all to say that if Davidson forces the issue, there may not be much blocking his path to AAA or the majors if the need arises.

Beyond Davidson, and another undrafted hitter, Parks Harber (#22 on the Giants’ top 30, acquired in the Camilo Doval trade last year), the most interesting names to watch are the pitchers. It’s not that they’re all that exciting in and of themselves but that the current list of “incumbents” for the major league bullpen is so desultory that there should be an open competition for most of the spots. You think I’m being harsh? I’m not alone in this opinion. Check this out.

That is flat-out depressing, and it doesn’t even seem unfair. In fact, my first reaction was “Wow, if Ryan Walker has a 0.9 fWAR, that would be an improvement!”* And that’s the best projection of the bunch.

*You think I’m kidding? Walker’s fWAR for 2026 was 0.6.

Anyway, there are several pitchers on the NRI list who have some legitimate major league experience and/or a pedigree, and you should keep an eye on them because the floor is loooow. Specifically:

  • Michael Fulmer, 31, former AL Rookie of the Year (OK, ten years ago), with major league closing experience
  • Will Bednar, 25, the Giants’ first-round pick in 2021, who showed an intriguing uptick in velocity during 2025 (and is the younger brother of an All-Star closer)
  • Gregory Santos, 26, a former Giant who actually had a pretty good year as a reliever for the White Sox in 2023
  • Nick Margevicius, 29, a lefty with some MLB experience (not since 2021, though) who had a decent year with the Tigers’ AAA team last season.

If you’re looking at this list and thinking “DrLefty is reaching,” well, I wouldn’t disagree with you. But the larger point is that the competition for bullpen spots is so underwhelming that one or more of these NRI guys could sneak onto an Opening Day roster with a good spring.

Beyond the two prospects from the top 30 (Davidson and Harber) and some pitching possibilities, there’s not much else to pay attention to. The three NRI catchers could be important if (a) someone gets hurt in camp (b) Daniel Susac shows that he ain’t it for Patrick Bailey’s backup or (c) Jesus Rodriguez doesn’t look ready for MLB yet, either. Of those three, Diego Cartaya is a fun name because he’s only 24 and at age 20 was a top-20 prospect in the Dodgers organization, but Eric Haase is the guy with significant big league experience who could end up as AAA depth. As for infielders (beyond Harber), you don’t need to pay much attention. The Giants’ major league infield is beyond full, and most of their top prospects are also infielders, so…these NRI guys aren’t getting any traction.

 

The 2026 Coaching Staff

This list was finally released yesterday, and it was mainly notable because it was so very late. We were told by beat reporters back during the Winter Meetings in December that the list was imminent, and then it wasn’t and wasn’t and wasn’t…Reading the stories from yesterday, it sounds like they’d actually hired everybody back in December but were still settling on roles and titles and that Tony Vitello was still working on bringing on one more coach, but that finally didn’t pan out. Anyway, here it is.

There’s a lot to like about this coaching staff, which according to reports was a joint effort between Vitello and the front office. There are several different groups represented here, some overlapping:

  • Coaches with previous connections to Vitello: bench coach Jayce Tingler, Director of Pitching Frank Anderson, hitting coach Hunter Mense; also strength and conditioning coordinator Quentin Eberhardt (from Tennessee)
  • Coaches with major league managing experience: Tingler, infield coach Ron Washington; plus, of course, special advisers/soon-to-be Hall of Famers Dusty Baker and Bruce Bochy
  • Coaches returning from Bob Melvin’s staff: assistant hitting coach Oscar Bernard, quality control Taira Uematsu, field coordinator and catching coach Alex Burg (who was promoted), bullpen catcher Eliezer Zambrano
  • Coaches promoted from within the organization: third base coach Hector Borg, first base coach Shane Robinson
  • Savvy hires made from other organizations: Mense (from Toronto), pitching coach Justin Meccage (from Milwaukee/Pittsburgh), and, of course, Washington
  • Straight from a playing career to the ranks of MLB coaches: bullpen coach Jesse Chavez

The hires of Tingler and Washington seem especially important given Vitello’s lack of professional coaching or managing experience, and Washington is considered one of the best infield coaches in the history of the game. I mean, we all know about the Scott Hatteberg/Moneyball thing, but there’s so much more. Eric Chavez, who won six Gold Gloves at 3B, famously gave one of his trophies to Washington. Marcus Semien went from being a train wreck of a shortstop for the A’s to a decent one and later became a Gold Glove 2B. Washington is also credited with helping Dansby Swanson and Ozzie Albies become much better infielders when he was the third base coach for the Braves (2016-2023).

 

The addition of Arráez adds some urgency to the situation, but for the longer term, Washington’s work with Eldridge, who’s still learning first base, and Rafael Devers, who played the position for the first time last season, might be even more consequential. It’s also worth remembering that Ron Wotus, another superb infield coach, is still around, though not listed as a member of Vitello’s coaching staff.

Frank Anderson, the father of 12-year major league pitcher Brett Anderson, has been a collegiate coach for over 40 years. During that period, over 100 pitchers he coached were selected in the MLB draft, and ten of those were first-round picks. Four of those ten were during his time working for Vitello at Tennessee, most notably Garrett Crochet, now the ace of the Red Sox. Three of those four were selected in the top 10, including the fifth pick in the 2025 draft, Liam Doyle (Cardinals). If Anderson can translate his successful coaching techniques to Giants’ major leaguers and minor leaguers, it could be incredibly important to their immediate future (see Birdsong, Hayden.)

I will say that I have a couple of question marks, if not exactly worries, about the list. Beyond the obvious–Vitello’s learning curve–I’m surprised to see young, inexperienced guys as the base coaches. I know that Borg has been a manager at several minor league levels, and typically a minor league manager coaches 3B, but…that said, the “experienced” guy last year (Matt Williams at 3B) was dreadful. It’s too bad that they lost Mark Hallberg from the organization when he took the bench coach position for the Twins–he could have moved back to his former 3B coach role, where he was pretty good, and mentored a new 1B coach, having done the job the last two years under Melvin. Ah, well. I did read that Washington said at his age he didn’t want to be a 3B coach again, but of course he should be able to advise Borg if need be.

I also wonder about a guy with no professional coaching experience becoming the bullpen coach. We’ll have to see how that goes. I was surprised they didn’t keep the guy from last year (Garvin Allston), but maybe his inability to fix Walker doomed him(?).

Overall, though, it seems like a thoughtfully constructed group with a great mix of experience and wisdom, countered with some youthful energy and history with the organization, plus some fresh sets of eyes who can hopefully help them improve where needed. I know one can overthink the impact of a coaching staff, but when you consider how well Gabe Kapler’s team did in 2021–and how well those coaches have done on the job market–compared to how uninspiring Melvin’s group was…well, Vitello’s new staff feels like something important to watch. If nothing else, since the Giants made only incremental additions to their roster this offseason, we can hope that the new staff can help the current group of players and top prospects dig deeper and be more successful.

 

This Week

Once camp opens this Tuesday, all eyes are going to be on Vitello: what kind of tone does he set, will his approach to a spring training camp be different from others (and if so, how), and so forth. I highly recommend Alex Pavlovic’s interview from Giants Talk this week with Mike Wilson, a beat writer from Tennessee. Wilson provided some very insightful commentary on Vitello’s tenure. The Wilson interview starts about 45 min into the podcast.

It’s pretty exciting that we’ll be able to talk about real baseball very soon. This offseason, like all of them, has dragged. Enjoy the Super Bowl, whether you’re in it for the food, for Bad Bunny, or for the commercials. I know I’m probably in the minority among TWGers, but I’ll be rooting for Sam Darnold and the Seahawks tomorrow. Yeah, yeah, I know Niners fans hate the Seahawks, but Sam was a Niner, and when they beat the Niners a couple weeks ago, Brock Purdy went to Sam after the game and said “Go win it.” I know Purdy and Kyle Shanahan will be rooting for him, and as a diehard Trojan who has a lot of grateful memories of Sam’s time at USC, I will be also.

Also, go Team USA in the Olympics!  Lefty out.

P.S. Pssst, Buster: there are still some pitchers available! Just saying!