The Giants haven’t released an official list of non-roster invitees to spring training yet, but we already know something: The list will be stuffed with catchers. There are a lot of people who need to throw baseballs and not nearly enough people to catch them. Think of spring training catchers like checkout clerks at a grocery store. Sometimes there are just enough, and sometimes there’s a line that spills into the aisleway. I’m not sure which pitcher is the one holding up the line because he’s arguing about coupons, but he knows, and so does everyone else.
Every collection of springtime catchers is going to be overstuffed, but the Giants’ situation is different. The ostensible backup catcher is Tom Murphy, by virtue of the $4 million he’s owed this season, but it’s the last front office who agreed to that contract. And while the ex-catcher managing the team was around last year, the ex-catcher in charge of the roster might have different ideas about what a backup catcher should be.
There are other developments. The Giants traded Blake Sabol to the Red Sox for international bonus money. Murphy turns 34 shortly after Opening Day, and he’s coming off a knee sprain that cost him last season, and one thing you should know about catchers is that they use their knees a lot. All baseball players do, but catchers more than most. Every single pitch, even. The Giants might not be thinking about him as a reliable option for 162 games, even if the majority of those games would be backing up Patrick Bailey.
There’s one more thing to consider, too: The Giants’ system isn’t exactly stuffed with catching prospects. Adrian Sugastey has a stellar defensive reputation and he’s only 21, but he struggled offensively in Double A in limited at-bats. Onil Perez also has youth on his side, but he’s years away. With Sabol out of the system, it seems unlikely, if not impossible, that the Giants will find a backup for Bailey who was in their system at the start of the offseason.
So let’s look at the different catchers the Giants are likely to bring into camp, starting with the one who had the backup job last year out of spring training, as well as three minor-league signings who could push for the job.
The incumbent: Tom Murphy
Tom Murphy wasn’t just someone on Farhan Zaidi’s radar last offseason; he was a part of the initial transaction chaos of Zaidi’s first season, joining the Giants for four days in 2019 before he was traded to the Mariners. Murphy had a breakout season in Seattle, with 18 homers, and he offered power over the next three seasons, even if he didn’t offer durability. A backup catcher with pop is the dream, and the .290/.335/.538 line in 2023 must have been mighty seductive. The 47 games played in 2023 (and 14 the season before) should have been mighty sobering.
Murphy’s Giants tenure has thus far not gone great. (Tim Nwachukwu / Getty Images)
Murphy might be the hardest player on the roster to peg, as far as offensive expectations go. Is he … good? Maybe. Is he too hurt to be good? Maybe. Is he too old to be good? Maybe. Part-time catchers are already hard to predict, and it gets worse when they’re older and coming off a serious injury.
He’s a bit easier to predict defensively. As in, Murphy is the kind of defensive backup who needs to hit. He’s never received stellar reports for his framing, blocking or arm strength, and the idea is that you can deal with that behind a Gold Glover if it comes with a handful of dingers. If he’s not hitting, he’s a downgrade from the Jakson Reetzes or Andrew Knapps of the world.
Still, the catching market is on the goofier side right now, with backups and semi-DHs getting close to $10 million, so it’s not like Murphy is grossly overpaid. If the new front office isn’t as enamored with him as the old front office, it wouldn’t be hard to move on. It wouldn’t be hard to enjoy 10 to 15 homers from a catcher in a part-time role, either, so we’ll see what the Giants do.
The ex-prospect: Sam Huff
An ex-prospect with latent potential that another team gave up on? That’s something the Giants can relate to, alright. But while Joey Bart’s 2024 season with the Pirates was impressive, it’s reasonable to assume it wouldn’t have happened in the shadow of Bailey (and Buster Posey). People use the “change of scenery” trope a little too liberally, substituting it for actual analysis, but it’s the simplest explanation with Bart. He had the talent, but his brain was working overtime, and not to his benefit. Your mileage may vary.
Sam Huff was never as hyped as Bart was — he was drafted in the seventh round out of high school, not second overall out of college — but he did enough to squeak onto a couple of top-100 prospect lists over the years. He got there because of his power, which is what you might expect from a 6-4, 240 pound catcher, but after a pair of encouraging Triple-A seasons that got him time with the Rangers in the majors, he stalled out at Triple-A Round Rock last year. His ability to be an average defender in the majors has always been a question, and the Rangers’ decision to get him a fair amount of time at first base and DH over the years only added more questions.
Is it possible for Huff to wow everyone in camp with his pedigreed bat and improved defense? It wouldn’t even be the wackiest-Huff related development for the Giants in the last couple decades. It seems far more likely that he’ll start the season in Sacramento and be given a chance if he thumps there.
The Giants were running low on dudes from the Sacramento area. There was a time when Logan Webb could chat about the Kings, agriculture or railroad history with all sorts of people, but now he’s mostly alone. Max Stassi is the pride of Yuba City, and don’t you forget it. He’s played in the majors for parts of 10 seasons, and his debut was so long ago that it was with a 111-loss Astros team in 2013. He’s not that old, though, turning 34, and he had a really good season in 2021, hitting .241/.326/.426 with a solid defensive reputation and some solid framing metrics. It was enough to make the Angels give him a three-year contract extension.
You know who else was really good in 2021 and got everyone’s hopes up? The Giants. Stassi has been even more disappointing since then, with a miserable, injury-marred year in 2022 and two lost seasons since then. He’s played five games at any level since 2022, and they were for the Triple-A affiliate for the White Sox last season.
If the dream is a backup catcher with pop, and the wacky, unrealistic dream is a backup catcher with pop and defense, Stassi has a chance to be the latter. He missed most of the last two seasons with a hip injury, though, and that has to rank as the most concerning injuries a catcher can have. The last time he was a valuable player was back in the days when Darin Ruf and Dominic Leone were setting the National League on fire, so it’s been a minute. And by “a minute,” I mean “several years, with no encouraging evidence in his favor since then.”
If he has an encouraging spring and a healthy hip, Stassi might be the guy. That might be as big of an “if” as any player in baseball, but you know Yuba City is in his corner. (And he’s in the very special Johnny Doskow-officiated-my-wedding club, which means he probably has a good sense of humor.)
There should be a term or name for the players who got supremely hosed by the cancellation of the 2020 minor-league season. They should be called something like “pandemic wraiths,” so we can stop explaining the situation in detail. But in 2019, Logan Porter was an undrafted free agent who was stuck in the Rookie leagues with the Royals, two or three years older than most of the players around him. Then the world ended, and he didn’t get to show off what he could do in full-season ball.
He came back in 2021 as a 25-year-old, and he hit well enough to get a promotion the following season to Double A, where he took off. Porter hit .301/.442/.476 between Double A and Triple A — yes, that’s a .442 on-base percentage, courtesy of 87 walks and 10 HBP in 473 plate appearances — but he wasn’t quite as impressive in 2023, with a .717 OPS in Triple A and a cup of coffee with the Royals. Then he got caught up in transaction madness last year. He started his 2024 season with a 1.003 OPS in Triple A (that’s good!) and the Giants paid cash money to acquire him from the Royals (even better!). Then the Giants released him a month later (that’s bad!) and he didn’t hit at all for the Triple-A Syracuse Mets in a couple dozen games (not great!).
He couldn’t have been that offended by his short time in the Giants organization, though, as he signed a minor-league contract early in the offseason. Porter has a .274/.397/.459 slash line in 1,835 career minor-league plate appearances, and he did most of that while in the Royals’ system. They didn’t have the most … robust or cutting-edge player development back then, so his success is even more impressive in that context.
Because Porter wasn’t one of the 1,217 players drafted in 2019, he’s always had more convincing to do than the typical minor leaguer, and if he succeeds, it’ll be as a bat-first catcher. If you’re looking for a player to root for, though, read through Alec Lewis’ profile on him here. He’s exceeded expectations for the better part of a decade, so maybe he’ll keep it up.
The likeliest player to back Bailey up? It’s still Tom Murphy, probably by a healthy margin. But while it might not be a traditional spring training battle, there will be a little more uncertainty than usual. Unless the Giants make a late move before pitchers and catchers report in three weeks, these are the catchers they’ll be considering.
(Top photo of Sam Huff: Mark J. Rebilas / USA Today)
