The Giants announced their National League Division Series roster this morning, with first baseman Brandon Belt and right-hander Johnny Cueto representing the most notable omissions. Belt’s absence was entirely expected, as he sustained a fracture in his thumb less than two weeks ago — an injury that initially came with a roughly four-week recovery period. He’s hoping to be able to return if the Giants advance to the NLCS, though there’s no certainty he’ll be able to do so. Cueto’s omission is not injury-related, but he wasn’t slated to make a start in a best-of-five series so the Giants will instead opt for 14 position players and 12 pitchers.
Here’s the roster they’ll carry into their date with their archrival Dodgers…
Right-Handed Pitchers
- Kervin Castro
- Anthony DeSclafani
- Camilo Doval
- Kevin Gausman (Game 2 starter)
- Dominic Leone
- Zack Littell
- Tyler Rogers
- Logan Webb (Game 1 starter)
Left-Handed Pitchers
Catchers
Infielders
Outfielders
There’s no sugar-coating what a tough loss it is for the Giants to be without Belt, who has not only enjoyed a resurgence but has produced at previously unforeseen levels during his age-33 and age-34 seasons. Dating back to Opening Day 2020, Belt has been the third-best hitter in all of baseball, by measure of wRC+ (163), trailing only Juan Soto and Bryce Harper in that time (min. 500 plate appearances). In his past 560 trips to the plate, Belt has turned in an outrageous .285/.393/.595 batting line and connected on 38 home runs and 27 doubles. Each of Flores, Ruf and Wade has seen time at first base for the Giants this season, and Bryant is certainly capable of slotting in at the position as well.
It’s possible that Cueto could be added back to the NLCS roster — a best-of-seven set that could include games on three consecutive days and thus increase the importance of adding some length to the pitching staff. While it hasn’t been one of Cueto’s best seasons, the 35-year-old posted solid results in 22 appearances (21 of them starts). The two-time All-Star and former Cy Young runner-up tallied 114 2/3 innings of 4.08 ERA ball with an even 20 percent strikeout rate and a very strong 6.1 percent walk rate. He’s in the final season of a six-year, $130MM contract that contains a $22MM club option with a $5MM buyout.
Surprisng. Cueto has great numbers vs. the Dodgers
Sad ending for Cueto’s Giants career. Thought he was going to be a top sign by them when he did, but entire run was not that good overall with the injuries.
remember Pedro was a big fan of his and wanted boston to sign him those years back.
Pedro likes change up guys
I wouldn’t necessarily describe 9 wins and 9 losses with a 3.76 era in 22 appearances vs the Dodgers as being “great.”
I think he meant this year but if I remember I’m pretty sure he got lit up early in the year. I know he threw a gem last time against them but I think trusting an older Cueto fresh off the IL against a 106 win team is risky business
Cueto pitched 5.2 innings vs Dodgers (1 start) this season and gave up 4 hits, 0 earned runs, 2 bb’s and 5 k’s. Far too small of a sample size to make a roster decision by.
Not a dodgers or giants fan not that it should matter when you make a intelligent thoughtful statement, but you need to qualify these things on here apparently. It’s ridiculous the two best teams in the entire league are playing in the first round of the playoffs. This isn’t even the first time it’s happened so it’s not like the league can say they didn’t anticipate it. Get rid of the divisions top 5 teams make the playoffs. Pretty simple. Stop giving the less competitive central teams a bigger advantage over 3rd place teams in tough divisions.
I disagree that the giants and dodgers the 2 best teams in baseball.
Tampa Bay racked up 100 wins playing in a division that featured 4 90 game winners. That’s tough.
If they had more cupcake teams like the 2nd half padres or rest of NL west I bet they add more than 6 or 7 wins. Instead they ran the Gauntlet of Boston, New York, and Toronto. So you can say coulda shoulda would didn’t, but, I don’t think you can claim who the best team was based on w/l record because they didn’t play the same opponents.
Has anyone ever thought maybe the Rockies, Dbacks and Padres were worse BECAUSE of the Giants and Dodgers? The Rockies were really good at home and probably would have been close to .500 in any other NL division. NL West was probably the second best division in all of baseball (AL East was the best no doubt)
As bad as the Padres were (given the pre-season narrative), I don’t think you can call them “cupcakes.” The Rockies and D-Backs, sure. San Diego is not—and won’t be next year—a pushover. [PS-I’m not a SD fan.]
@Pete –
After the trade deadline the padres went 18-36.
If you prefer to go after June 30, they still only went 30-50.
So, yes, in the second half the padres were a cupcake team.
@gmen, popular argument to make… would CWS or MIL be where they were if the central weren’t as weak? Would the orioles would be a much better team in any other division? Are small market teams lumped into big market divisions at an unfair disadvantage and should teams be reorganized by market size? There is no equality. Baseball is a zero sum game, so any team you remove a win from gets redistributed to someone else, so, technically the other NL west records HAVE to get better without quality teams on top…
I will say padres could’ve been a better team than they played due to issues during the season, but, they’re hardly the only team with major issues – cite to the dysfunctional red sox who saw a skid followed by a covid outbreak and were running sub-replacement level players out and, yet, still made a wild card. Or how many dodgers starters went on the IL but there was just so much depth to compensate.
I got your Cupcake right here Chief
Totally agree.
STL won 90 and CIN won 83. Not sure MIL/NL Cenral is the best example to use for making that point.
When Cueto pitched against the Dodger earlier this year they were without Betts, Seager and Tre Turner. Different team than now.
I disagree for me as a life long giants fan this is 3rd only to the 1989 World Series (my first as a fan) and the 2010 World Series my first WS win as a fan. I have many dodger fans that are friends through work the Marines Corps and other faucets of life and this season and now this series’s exhilarating. I think there should be more rivalry’s in the playoffs. Your solution might actually result in that but in terms of the advantages I don’t know that they have one, if the giants beat the dodgers or the dodgers beat the giants (won’t happen) that team enters the next series with an invincible mentality much more relaxed then their opponent, and energized to win a WS. Just my opinion, and that being said I don’t want to totally discount yours as I do feel there’s merit in it.
I think the Giants brass didn’t include Cueto on the NLDS roster based on his latest injury and lack of pitching over the last month. He’s only pitched once (out of the BP in some 30 days) and I think is too unpredictable at this point. I don’t think his exclusion from the roster has anything to do with his history with the Dodgers.
TonyG is back!! Where’s your “Giants LOL” now dog?? We sure destroyed your team this year. Eat your cupcake with some Giants LOL sprinkles on top!!!
Agree completely with that division concept. Or even an east and west like they had in the 80s. It’s not gonna happen cuz they hedge their bets TV coverage wise by separating out the divisions by area, hopefully upping tv viewership
There’s a much easier solution than getting rid of the divisions. That would be a nightmare for travel if it was a totally balanced schedule. And how would that work with interleague games, which you have to have with 15 teams in each league? Would the Mariner’s be playing the Rays the same number of games as they would against the A’s?
Don’t get rid of the divisions, just do what other sports do; re-seed after the WC games, so the 2 teams with the best records are in line to play for the pennant.
yeah Cueto has a 5.1 IP and 0 ERA versus LAD in 2021
But when using 2020 also he has a 7.24 ERA which I think played a part in thinking about his rostering
Dodgers in 4.
Not having belt nullifies the loss of muncy. Should be good series none the less, I believe whoever wins this is going to World Series.
Does losing Belt also nullify the losses of May, Bauer and Kershaw?
Have you heard of trea Turner and max scherzer lol gtfo kershaw that’s rich.
Buehler
Urias
Scherzer
Is all the dodgers need to beat gausmen and Webb? I’ll take my chances
If it was me Cueto > Littell and Estrada > Dickerson. Pretty sure if the Giants go deep enough for Watson and possibly Belt to make it back these are the two that go. Go Giants!
Keep in mind Cueto in 2020 vrs Dodgers was ripped apart carrying a 7.24 ERA
Littell is more valuable than Cueto as a reliever.
I find both omissions surprising.
Disregard, Belt is injured so that’s an obvious choice.
Yeah not even sure why they titled it that way. Would have been a borderline miracle for him to make the roster
What about Tony Watson?
He’s hurt they said he’d be out at least this series if not the NLCS too
great question
Injured
I prefer his brother Randy and his band Sexual Chocolate
Without Belt the Giants may buckle.
I see what you did there..
Belt hitting against Dodgers is lousy. Max Means more to LAD
You haven’t been paying attention. Muncy’s been fantastic—Dodgers will miss him. But Belt has been on fire—Giants will miss him as much or more.
Pete look at these stats and get back to me:
Muncy vrs Giants 8 HR 12 RBI .284 10BB
Belt vrs Dodgers 1 HR 1RBI .190 2BB
Yeah, but DataShark, what I’m saying is that as good as Muncy is in L:A, he has more talent around him. Belt was so good down the stretch that the Giants will miss Belt more than the Dodgers will miss Muncy.
The Giants .LOL
Regular season over achievers that about to catch a beating from LA
You think so? I think this series is going 5 on paper the loss of belt equals the loss of muncy. Pitching and bullpens are close and I give the slight edge in lineup to dodgers. It’s gonna come down to wire
Belt loss > Muncy loss. I think anyway
Belt was basically carrying this team down the stretch. It seemed like he was hitting a clutch home run every night so the Giants could squeak past the Diamondbacks. Dodgers’ lineup is way more stacked without Muncy than the Giants’ lineup without Belt
Muncy vrs Giants 8 HR 12 RBI .284 10BB
Belt vrs Dodgers 1 HR 1RBI .190 2BB
I think Muncy off dodgers is way more than loss of belt for giants
Immediate impact > historical impact.
Dodgers have a deeper bench so Muncy won’t be as much of a loss. As JFK once said, “Ask not what productive bat is missing–ask what player is slotted to replace that production.”
I will take Flores/Ruf starting all day long over Beaty
Dodgers bench is not deeper than the Giants lol. Giants had 17 players hit five HR (a record), 18 pinch hit HRs (a record) and had the second most WAR from their 8-14 best hitters in all of baseball (Rays were first). Dodger fans seem to think having a way past his prime Albert Pujols makes their entire bench elite and the only thing he did well was hit lefties.
Geez, Another Fool’s nonsensical comment
The LAD bench is headed by Chris Taylor .
Need I say more ?
How many Giants bench pieces made the 2021 All-Star team or walked off a deciding playoff game this year ??
Also, as far as Pujols goes , he’s 3rd on MLB all time RBI list . Dude can still hit . And his postseason experience speaks for itself
if one actually compares benches Dodgers are very thin that is why they have players like McKinney, Mckinstry, Raley souza, etc
They seem to think Lux and Taylor are superstars that bat .254 and .247
Taylor is very good but look at his stats versus Ruf or Flores giants go deeper on hitting bench
Pujols career stats…lol.
Pujols is well below his career he has aged although he can pull one here and there…look at the benches without your dodger visionblindness
you will see giants are deeper outside of taylor it drops to lux than drops much further to pujols then squat after that
1.5 WAR Guys like Flores or Negative WAR guys like Dickerson ain’t gonna get it done against LAD elite pen arms. No way
Agreed, the Dodgers depth has been depleted by departures, injuries and lack of youngsters stepping up like in the past. Wild card bench roster almost made me puke. Terrible easy out bats. Some pretty ugly arms shuffled through the bullpen too in the regular season. In a five game series looks like the Dodgers are still going batter heavy in only adding one more arm in Price, who is likely in a mop up/desperation role. I’d think if they get to NLCS, they’ll swap another bat or two for bullpen arms.
He’s better than Flores. Ruf has had a good year.
FWIW, Giants had a higher winning percentage without Belt in the lineup.
They won’t miss him. And they won’t miss him next year when he signs a big fat contract with some other team, then spends half the year on the IL.
Belt vs, LAD, and Muncy vs, SF, are small samples. Small samples like those are useless, especially for any kind of predictive aspect, like who will do better in a payoff series.
Talk about nonsensical. Pujols being 3rd in career RBI is about as relevant as Hank Aaron being number one. Neither one is going to help that much in the 2021 PS.
Pitching and bullpens close ? You sound like a FOOL
Scherzer, Buehler, Urias are elite talents with mega postseason season starts .
Total career postseason starts for Gausman / Webb ZERO . Lol
Dodgers pen arms have STUFF . Kelley / Treinen aren’t even fair. It’s ridiculous unhittable Stuff. They’re Assassins….Weapons
Giants had the best bullpen ERA in all of baseball. People on here are straight up ignoring stats lol
they are dodger homers. Cannot see stats being equal they think their team is better than 1927 yankees
I think everyone is waiting for several Giant players to revert to their more recent selves. Credit to them that they haven’t so far. Perhaps the playoffs will be that time. Anything can happen in a five game series but you’d think that the Dodgers still have the better talent and thus why they’re still favored despite SF having better regular season record and home field advantage. But again, the shorter the series the more random the results.
Dodger homers? The dude you’re arguing with, is a Padres fan, Dimwit.
You do realize that the guy you are arguing with is a Padres fan, right? You seem to be the “homer” here, Gina.
And the dodgers were second with a better FIP. I’ll agree that it’d be hard to really call either one better than the other.
Well that beats being underachievers like the Padres who finished 28 games behind them.
The Padres LOL. The under-achieving, overpaid, can’t play .500 baseball over a full season train wreck? The same team who actually CAUGHT a beating from LA at the end of the season as they were flaming out?
The Padres have made the playoffs in what, six times in their 50+ year history? The only time in the last decade being last year in the expanded playoffs. Go away, clown. GTFOH and come back when your team can actually play .500 ball.
Another Soft overly sensitive Frisco guy.
San Francisco: Under informed provincial baseball fans who wear Birkenstock’s and have too many cats in the house . LOL
What’s wrong sweetheart? Are you mad that the Giants are in the playoffs and the Padres are not?
Every Giants post you have a comment. Why? Because you are a loser, with loads of free time on your hands to comment about a team that finished 28 games better than your team?
Who is being overly sensitive now, b****? LOL
Says the guy that’s so insecure to the point that he’s now jumped on the Dodgers Bandwagon.
Six months of bad takes will do that I guess.
@ fake Padres fan TG SD 19 In April I got 88-1 odds in reno at the cal Nevada. People kept saying that all year, now I have people offering to pay me 20k for that 1000 bet, you might be right and I might be wrong but at least I put my money where my mouth is. Oh and my favorite place to take a piss in SoCal is on the front steps at Chavez latrine.
TonyG, you can LOL all off season while your team reels, overspends again in FA, and comes back next season to underachieve. I’d rather be a fan of a team that over achieves while I don’t LOL, than a fan of an lifeline under-achieving team while LOLing all year long about nothing!!
Love when Tony comments. Whatever he says, you can count on the exact opposite happening. It’s amazing! Like bizarro world on Seinfeld
Gausman / Webb are door slammers against dodgers…
But DeSclafani and Wood are no where near that…and should use short leash on them because dodgers hit well against them.
Gausman got yanked after 3 innings the last time he faced the Dodgers. He also has a 4.36 ERA in 14 starts since that outing
so what 1 appearance. look up his stats against dodgers overall
Your logic also says Buehler is not a stopper either then.
What is Buehler’s ERA in his last 14 starts? A whole helluva lot better than Gausman’s.
what does Buehler play against other teams matter its how giants play on him that counts.
Okay. I’m clearly talking to a child homer. And we’re done.
Buehler’s ERA is nearly 2 runs lower than Gausman’s over the same time frame. A pitcher’s success is more dependent on their command than their stuff or their opponent (See: Nathan Eovaldi’s last two starts against the Yankees.) Sure, Buehler’s last outing against SF wasn’t great, but Gasuman hasn’t been all that great since the ASB either. For someone whose name is datashark, you clearly haven’t been looking at long-run statistics
Buehler 2.47 ERA 207 IP 212K 16-4
Gausmen 2.81 ERA 192 IP 227K 14-6
Look pretty similar for entire season edge to buehler but not outstandingly both are door slam starters for their teams
Lets look at starts since sept 1 since 14 starts is way too far off to judge their current state.
Buehler 4.90 ERA 31.2 IP ER=17
Gausman 4.05 ERA 40 IP ER=18
am not the homer am using pure stats to prove it
Fletcher
Lets take a look at the most important stats Pitcher Vs Team against
Dodgers Vrs Gausman
Bats .160
3.21 ERA 14IP
Giants vrs Buehler
Bats .209 Best Hitter
2.19 ERA 37IP
Note: best hitter against Giants Max Muncy is out.
that .160 hitting is going to factor a lot without muncy
Yes, I, a David Fletcher fan account, am a Dodgers homer. You’re a clown commenter bro. As I mentioned before, BAA against and past starts against a certain team mean nothing. The Red Sox had a .257 team batting average last night, the Rays had a .207 batting average and outscored the Sox by 5. Again, to use the Sox as an example. Nathan Eovaldi had a 3.91 ERA since Sept 1 and gave up 7 ER in 2.2 innings his last time out against NYY. Your “logic” would dictate that he would have have gotten shelled in the WC game.
This Gausman v. Buehler debate runs a lot deeper than meaningless cherrypicked statistics and will ultimately come down to whoever can execute their pitches better on a given night. You can try to nitpick and do mental gymnastics all you want, but tightly-contested, high-leverage playoff games are decided by a handful of poorly located pitches, and nobody can truly predict who will throw them.
I never said past performance determines future result am only stating that the comparison between gausman vrs buehler is not as far as it is being stated and Gausman has a very solid output against dodgers and their best hitter against him is out (muncy) so game 2 will be a factor.
Buehler is playing against Webb so that is even more crucial for dodgers as webb has been a stud.
on sept 5 how many innings did buehler pitch verse giants?
Remember dodgers hit .160 against Gausman and giants hit .209 vrs Buehler
Walker Buehler career Postseason starts- 11
Kevin Gausman career Postseason starts – 0
LOL
wow, tonygwynnSD19 giants should never have won in 2010 according to that heavy stat you brought up.
Giants going to get swept in 4.
Well considering they can’t get swept ou n 4 games because it’s a best of 5 I think you’re a little wrong.
That’s my point.
Castro is a curious choice
If you look at Cueto’s next year being only 17m beyond sunk costs… I would keep him.
Cueto has a club option meaning they can just buy him out for $5m and will NOT eat rest of the 22m part of deal.
Yeah he’s saying that 5m is a sunk cost anyway so it’s 17m essentially to sign him for 1 year. I get the point but cueto isn’t healthy and has fallen off quite a bit. Maybe if they strike out at the beginning of free agency but probably not
If I were them I would use that $17m saved on Cueto to resign Gausman
Regardless of what happens this series, this has been one hell of a year for the Giants organization. Nobody, I repeat nobody, had them penciled in for anywhere close to what they accomplished this year.
The future is bright, a farm system that is climbing, plenty of payroll falling off of the books and a ownership they will allow Farhan Zaidi to spend on whoever he wants. Does Kris Bryant sign long term?
On paper the Dodgers look like a dream team. They are literally loaded with All Stars and MVP type caliber players.
Respect to both teams. The future is bright for the both of them, as they are both well ran, top tier organizations.
Again, why did Dickerson make the playoff roster? He offers absolutely nothing to this team!!! They should have kept Estrada imho
100% agreed Thairo they probably felt did not have power like dickerson (which was proven wrong this year) and lack of vet status.
I don’t remember the last time Dickerson even had a hit? He’s swinging and missing on fastballs down the heart of the plate smh. Maybe had they kept Cueto on the roster, he could have replaced Gausman and gotten some outs, instead of Leone. Shoulda, woulda, coulda.
am concerned with DeScalini and Wood they both don’t have history of stopper power vrs Dodgers (although most of the damage was done by Muncy)
I think Giants need to go 3 man rotation as I don’t think relievers can be counted once dodgers are rolling. They need to attack zone because Dodgers did stop chasing and that was the trouble on Saturday.
Of the two, I prefer Wood because he has more movement on his pitches as opposed to Desclafani. Wood needs to go deep into the game tonight. And yes, Muncy has killed the Giants, especially Desclafani. It’s imperative the Giants score some runs early against Scherzer.