The Giants have agreed to a minor league contract with veteran outfielder Brandon Guyer, tweets USA Today’s Bob Nightengale. The ACES client would earn $1MM upon making the big league roster, but won’t open up in MLB camp, per Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic (via Twitter).
The 2019 season marked the first time since 2013 that Guyer didn’t appear in the Majors. He might’ve eventually had that chance on a then-rebuilding White Sox roster, but the now-34-year-old Guyer opened the season in Triple-A Charlotte and spent most of the year on the injured list.
Guyer hasn’t had a full, productive season in the big leagues since 2016 and has long been something of a specialty player. The right-handed-hitting veteran has traditionally struggled against right-handed pitching but has tormented lefties with a .274/.375/.448 slash (130 wRC+) in 793 plate appearances. Guyer thrives at getting on base when holding the platoon advantage, in no small part due to his league-leading penchant for getting hit by pitches (as explored at great length by FanGraphs’ August Fagerstrom back in 2016).
Giants fans have been expecting some outfield additions since president of baseball ops Farhan Zaidi said last week that deepening that mix was a priority. While this move probably isn’t as exciting as anything Giants fans might’ve hoped for, Guyer’s right-handed bat would seemingly pair well with a heavily left-handed outfield mix — Alex Dickerson, Steven Duggar and Mike Yastrzemski — if he makes the team.
this man loves to get plunked
One broken bone will cure him of that.
He’s 34, so, I’m assuming he’s been thru that at least once
It’s sad when that’s the highlight of your baseball card!
his 2016 was pretty good
Nah, Tim Locastro better
The second coming of Ron Hunt.
Chase Utley was my thought for a guy who like to lean into pitches
Great pickup … in 2016. Yes, depth, I know.
Cant wait until FanFest this weekend. I assume the players will be wearing name tags ?
gmen, you made me laugh with that one. Thanks! I appreciate it!
I remember in some mlb game in the early 2010’s, (I think mlb 2k), they thought Guyer was going to be the next big think, like .300 average with 30 homers a season. I guess it didn’t work out that way.
P.S Lonnie Chisenhall was another guy that that game thought was going to be great… Again, that didn’t work out.
Wonder why Giants don’t go after Puig, unless Fahidi really has an issue with his impulsivity and personality challenges.
Zaidi probably likes him well enough, but Puig would do at least as much damage to Giants fans’ morale as he would to the team’s and both of those entities are already being asked to suffer through a rebuild.
Sign puig? Even if he doesnt piss off the team before bum comes to town and plunks him in the okele. Who they gonna back???!
Now that there’s a 26 man roster, we might see the return of the 5th OFer. Given the fact he’s a pretty good defender, that sounds like Guyer.
Does this mean a Hunter Pence reunion is out?
The guy who was on second base when Rajai hit the home run.
How’d that work out for you? Haha
After the home run, the game promptly ended and nothing else happened
Amazing signing !I have my Guyer jersey pre ordered.
Giants management better be selling home plate tickets for $15 this season. Besides the core guys, who really would need a huge bounceback season, they have no one that will draw fans to pay $50+ a ticket. I hope Yaz’s season last year was just the start of a 4 or 5 year run where he can put up similar numbers. They have a few pitchers I’m hoping to see develop, and maybe Samardzija can have a similar year to last year and bring a good prospect or two at the deadline.
All that being said, last years ticket prices will leave a stadium with a very low turnout.
We’re all fans, but management can’t expect fans to shell out hard earned money if all they are supplying is a bunch of guys (we will always have love for) but have to hope can be their old selves, and a bunch of AAAA players.
you gotta like these kids.
is roger craig available?
You can buy bleacher tickets during the week for pretty cheap.
The Giants. Lol
Another typically dumb comment from a typically dumb Yankee fan.
Yeah @righty, it does get a little old.
Why are SF Giants fans so fragile? Geez, grow a pair
Nice try rightyspecialist. Don’t like the taste of your own medicine? Lol indeed.
Don’t confuse “fragile” with “having little patience for redundant stupidity.”
Sign puig? Even if he doesnt piss off the team before bum comes to town and plunks him in the okele. Who they gonna back???!
Zaidi is embarrassing
Again, for the 800th time, no combination of moves this offseason would make the Giants even a WC contender. These moves are low risk, roster fillers with the hope that a few catch fire and can be flipped midseason. If you’re getting bent out of shape by a minor league signing, you’re looking for an issue.
Welp..I would take Brandon Guyer over JaCoby Jones.
“Guyer hasn’t had a full, productive season in the big leagues since 2016…”. The same can be said for a number of Giants, he’ll fit right in.
Funny. Just last week, just saw Jon Bois did a “Dorktown” vid on this guy back in October. Crazy story.
Well, not a terrible signing. Guyer at least gives them someone to compete with Duggar for center field, and the bar is set pretty low there.
Trying to predict the 2020 opening day roster is a ridiculous and unrewarding puzzle. You could go the cop out route of Mlb.com Giants writer Maria Guardado and just pick it based on returning players’ 2019 stats and then plug in veterans who are known to be signed to be minor league deals. Seriously she has done some of the most superficial analysis I’ve ever seen. Remember when the Giants’ website actually had news and analysis and not cutesy anecdotes about players’ personal lives ? I don’t give a flying duck about Hunter Pence’s idiosyncrasies.
Sorry, rant over. The other thing you could do if you have some time to kill is try to read Zaidi’s mind and figure out what one of his rosters will look like based on snippets dropped in the media. The one about using pitchers in a variety of roles made me wondèr if he isn’t planning to load the bullpen with long relievers and forego having a closer. When will they need one anyway. So I’m guessing Vincent and Blevins can enjoy a month or two in Sacramento while they go through all the roster fringe first.
Not like the Opening Dat roster really matters though. Once the revolving door begins a week later, all bets are off anyways.
Zaidi’s latest signing, Brandon Guyer, is a continuance of his rebuild. The 2020 San Francisco Giants will be known as the Expansion Team Giants. And a 100 loss team thanks to Zaidi.