Giants’ crowded crop of backstops in focus

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — The Giants have a catching drawback. Lucky for them, it’s an excellent drawback.

Bart and Wynns provide familiarity, with Bart having spent the previous three seasons with the Giants and Wynns catching 57 video games (43 begins) for San Francisco final 12 months — to not point out his two-year overlap with starter Alex Cobb in Baltimore.

Pérez brings expertise and “expertise.” An eight-year Major League veteran and two-time Gold Glove Award winner, Pérez caught a gifted employees in Cleveland earlier than signing a Minor League cope with the Giants on Feb. 6.

And then there’s Sabol, a Rule 5 Draft decide and pure outfielder who has been getting appears behind the plate and within the outfield this spring.

With Pérez and Sabol being new to the workforce, the main target this spring has been on getting them reps with the Major League rotation and constructing their confidence.

In 2019, Pérez ranked fourth within the Majors with a 51.8% strike fee. The following 12 months in a shortened ’20 season, Pérez was twelfth, with 51.2 %. The predominant concern with Pérez is sturdiness, as he was restricted to 21 video games final season after present process season-ending left hamstring surgical procedure in May, after battling accidents all through ’21.

“I’ve thrown to him twice this spring,” Cobb mentioned, “and it’s been a few times where I’ve been able to maybe expand the zone a little bit or throw some high-quality pitch shapes that you can flirt between, ‘I’m going to try and get this to be a swing-and-miss pitch in this area,’ and you’re not expecting those to be called strikes. He’s able to frame it and make it look like a strike.”

If he can keep wholesome, Pérez can provide the Giants a veteran presence behind the dish.

“He’s been great with our pitching staff,” bullpen and catching coach Craig Albernaz mentioned. “He listens extremely well, meaning that, when the pitchers want him to execute something, we want him to execute something, he’s able to go out there and execute for us. Sometimes with veteran catchers they have a lot of other organizations that they know, so it’s tough to kind of get past that. But he’s great at doing that in-game.”

On the opposite aspect of the veteran spectrum is 25-year-old Sabol, who has but to make his large league debut. Despite some early hiccups as he will get used to the Major League employees, Sabol is impressing at camp, along with his means to soak up data and translate it to sport conditions standing out.

“I think the first thing that I notice is his ability to communicate and his confidence in who he is as a player,” Cobb said. “I think that everything that you get to know about him, he has all the qualities that it’s going to take to elevate his game to be a very good big league catcher.”

Even when he’s not behind the plate, Sabol has discovered himself stepping into Cactus League play through the outfield (two begins) or at designated hitter (three begins). Through 13 spring video games coming into play Sunday, Sabol is slashing .379/.525/.793 with a 1.138 OPS. In 2022, Sabol hit .284 with 19 homers and an .860 OPS in 123 video games throughout two ranges (Double-A and Triple-A).

“I think he’s worked really hard and done well,” starter Alex Wood mentioned. “Still young. The more we throw to each other and I think across the board with everybody, the better he’ll be. But I think he’s done a good job. … Hopefully he keeps swinging it the way he has and just continues to learn as we go, and I think he’ll do fine.”

No matter which mixture of catchers the Giants decide on — with accidents at different positions and Sabol’s flexibility, there’s an excellent probability they carry greater than two — the employees feels that the workforce can’t go mistaken with its 4 gifted choices.

“It’s been cool to be a part of, and to kind of see these four interact has been cool,” Albernaz mentioned. “They’re kind of setting the culture standing around here with guys. How they go about their business, their work ethic, in-game, all that stuff. And the guys see it, so the team and the pitching staff have been feeding off it.”