The Giants are planning to designate outfielder Luis Matos for assignment, reports Susan Slusser of The San Francisco Chronicle. She adds that minor league signee Jared Oliva is expected to break camp in a bench role, so he’ll take Matos’ spot on the active and 40-man rosters.
Matos is out of minor league options. Formerly one of the organization’s top position player prospects, he was one of the most intriguing players fighting to hold his 40-man spot this spring. The Giants gave him a look long in camp, as he led the team with 23 games and 55 plate appearances.
After a quick start, Matos’ bat cooled in the middle of March. He finished the spring with a .260/.327/.440 line with two home runs. Matos only struck out three times but also took just one walk, as his on-base percentage was propped up by getting plunked by four pitches.
That aggressiveness has undercut Matos’ production in meaningful games. He’s a .231/.281/.369 hitter over parts of three MLB seasons. Matos has taken just under 600 plate appearances, the rough equivalent to one full season of playing time. He has hit 15 homers with strong contact rates but has worked walks at a modest 6.1% clip.
The Giants can wait until tomorrow morning to officially designate Matos for assignment. They’ll then have five days to try to trade him. If nothing comes together, they’d need to place him on waivers. There’s a decent chance he’ll be claimed, as he’s a 24-year-old former notable prospect who owns a .287/.345/.505 line over three Triple-A seasons. If another team acquires him via trade or waivers, they’d need to carry him on the big league roster.
Matos’ exclusion means the Giants will probably carry Jerar Encarnacion. He’s also an out-of-options outfielder who fits best in a corner or at designated hitter. He can get regular playing time at DH with Bryce Eldridge opening the season in the minors. San Francisco optioned depth outfielders Will Brennan and Drew Gilbert to Triple-A Sacramento this evening.
Rule 5 pick Daniel Susac is expected to win the backup catcher job. Casey Schmitt and Christian Koss seem ticketed for utility infield roles. That’ll very likely leave Oliva as a fifth outfielder and backup center fielder behind Harrison Bader. Assuming he’s officially selected onto the roster tomorrow, it’ll be his first MLB work in five years.
Oliva played in 26 big league games with the Pirates between 2020-21. He has bounced around the upper minors for the past few seasons without returning to the big league level. Oliva had a league average .252/.335/.413 batting line with 57 stolen bases in Triple-A with the Milwaukee organization last year. He signed a minor league deal with San Francisco over the winter and seized a job with his continued aggressiveness on the bases.
The righty-hitting outfielder stole 14 bags in 15 attempts. His .375 average over 20 games is unlikely to be a precursor to much of an impact at the plate, but the Giants are opting for more speed and defense in the final bench spot than Matos would have provided.
Mildly surprising that they didn’t try to keep him on the Opening Day roster and waive him in a few days.
But Jerar Encarnación (also out of options) fits the bench better because he can also play first base and has tantalizing power off the bench. And Jared Oliva won’t be “wasted” getting sparse at bats off the bench, because his speed is something the Giants roster sorely lacks. His ability to pinch run alone makes him more novel than Matos, who’s been sort of a “master of none” in his time with the Giants.
I would love the unlikely event of Matos clearing waivers and getting another shot in San Francisco, but hopefully he gets some playing time wherever he ends up
Given his young age and room to grow, I think he’ll likely get claimed.
He will.
I don’t think Encarnación has any defensive value.
Oliva will be great off our bench and fun to watch, it will be great to have a true base stealing threat. I was just hoping for Matos over Encarnacion.
Not many Giants fans are keen of AAAA player Jerar Encarnarcion, who always seems to find his way to the IL. He’s also slow as molasses.
I’m keen for him. Needs a decent crack at it. Last year’s hand injury was extremely untimely.
And not that slow, the big fella can get rolling when he needs to.
No, Encarnacion is remarkably slow. You can tie his shoes while he runs the bases.
That sucks. Just another failed development by this org post-3in5 era.
This is EXACTLY what Buster and the Giants should do. Oliva is perfect for the Giants and obviously the Giants couldn’t get what they wanted for Luis.
Luis just couldn’t find consistency. Had his chances. Move forward.
I’ve been getting Jared Oliva confused with Will Craig for some reason the guy who never lived down that play against the Cubs. I guess it makes sense considering as of now both of them only played in the bigs for the Pirates from 2020-21.
White Sox should check in on this guy.
After losing Bart and Luciano I’m pretty numb to this one.
Matos is a fine player but he just couldn’t find it in SF. With the Marlins signing Austin Slater that eliminates one of his landing spots. KC, MIN, CHW or the Rockies would be great places for Luis.
Wishing him nothing but the best!
Could possibly land in Cleveland as well.
Matos went ice cold the last 2 weeks of ST. Bummer, I was really rooting for him. Thing with Oliva is they can DFA him at any time and there’s a decent chance he’ll pass through waivers. I’m not sure if he has options left. He hasn’t played in the bigs since 2021. Nice ST though, good for him.
I swear I would get so confused between this guy, Heliot Ramos, Marco Luciano and Mauricio Dubon. Ramos is the good one who made it out.
Ramos barely made it out, he was almost to this point a couple of years ago. And with his defensive shortcomings and tremendously long cold spells, he may yet be a roster casualty in a couple of years. Hopefully, he continues to improve, both offensively and defensively, and is the starting left fielder for years to come.
Fans were writing Ramos off. Not sure the org ever did.
Matos didn’t get the shot that Ramos did. Ramos had a 32 OPS+ over his ages 22 and 23 seasons. Age 24 is when he broke out. Matos had an 81 OPS+ over his ages 22 and 23 seasons.
The comparison isn’t a good one since Ramos had played only 34 games, while Matos played 102. So look at the MiL numbers:
Ramos: .768 OPS at AAA, and a .789 OPS MiL total.
Matos: .849 OPS at AAA, and an .828 OPS MiL total.
Yet Ramos was kept for his age 24 season, while Matos won’t get a chance to see what he could do in his age 24 season. It just shows that teams look at more than numbers.
Yeah I was looking at the numbers. Seemed to start him in the majors awfully early. Can’t. E too shocked at struggles. They better not mess up Eldridge.
Wishing Matos best of luck on his next baseball adventure. I can see him getting lots of runway, on a team like the Royals, Twins or Angels. Even the Blue Jays might be able to use him on the bench.
Oliva had a great spring, and the Giants definitely need some more speed on the base paths. I salute SF being open to making changes, whether it’s demoting the mediocre Spencer Bivens from the bullpen, or giving Oliva a shot.
Bivens might well be mediocre in talent, but he is well above average in terms of wringing every drop of it out, every single time. Don’t pick a fight with the dude. He is all guts. 2 years as a Giant, 130 innings, 3.7 era. He has earnt the right to be going nowhere. Respect.
Spot on Fopp.
Bivens is able to do well in any situation. Spot starter, long relief, high leverage, mop up, setup, or close one out. He don’t care, just gets outs. Versatility is his jam.
I’m glad Heliot Ramos finally broke out and almost lived up to the hype there had been for him. The others just never looked more than AAA players once they were given a shot.
The Giants should’ve packaged Matos and Luciano for a legitimate veteran three years ago. Throw in Whisenhunt, and they could’ve gotten a cornerstone player.
What a gift, having hindsight.
Too bad Zaidi didn’t have foresight.
Ha ha. He would have had the foresight to not post hindsight rubbish like that.
Moon: Did you also make this post 3 years ago? In hindsight that’s what you should have done. You’d have been most valuable poster.
The Angel’s love other teams garbage
I have to admit to being absolutely wrong about Matos in multiple posts and responses. All a fan like me has to go on are the stats. Matos’ numbers are superior to Ramos’ at the same ages in both MiL and MLB, so I’m stunned that they’re moving on from him. I would love to know the reasons why they stuck with Ramos, but are willing to cut Matos loose when others can be optioned. They’re the experts, and I’m anything but, just wish I knew the thought process behind the decision.
You had his back, Jean. Good work !
They got Ramos when he was 17 ? Few more years invested. Knew the mental animal a bit better. Rated his talent more. Who knows. Buster might take us through it at some stage.
Thanks. Not to nit-pick, but they signed Matos at age 17 as well. Both lost a MiL season to Covid, Matos his age 18 season, and Ramos his age 20 season.
Bad timing all around, Ramos just lucked out the team didn’t have a LF since Bonds. Would love to keep a lot of guys but Matos isn’t going to develop into anything more than he is now with minimal playing time.
@Jean
I think it was luck/timing
They were desperate and had to play Ramos and turns out he figured it out
Matos has had 600 ABs to figure it out, but he is young however to get him a chance they’d have to platoon him with Lee or take ABs from Ramos or Bader
It’s not that they gave up on him, it’s that they can’t send him down
This shines a light on the idiocy of giving Cahna 80 ABs at the end of 2024 and Matos 12–good old Farhan and Melvin loved their ex A’s
RBI potential, my humble opinion!
I hope they can figure out a trade and get something back instead of just a DFA.
Well if he gets traded, cards should come calling. Maybe a bigger trade involving jojo romero? Or maybe the giants take walker back who can be sent to the minors? Cards have players in spots on their 40 that matos is better than. Would like to see matos over fermin
The Giants won’t find a trade partner for Matos until AJ Preller calls with 5 minutes remaining and offers Kash Mayfield and Ethan Salas.
Ain’t happenin’, might wanna check your vision.
Jared Oliva in big 2026 is crazy
At this point Matos has proven to be a 4th or 5th OF, he’s young and might develop but not taking away ABs from the starting 3 OF on SF this year
They’d keep him in AAA if they could
JE has a scary power element he showed in 2024 the getting HBP and then the pulled muscle hosed his 2025 and he can play 1B
If Matos lights it up elsewhere it will be for a team that had to play him (like Ramos for SF) and he figures it out—if not he’s another young OF who wasn’t quite what they hoped he’d be—SF has a long history of those
Matos poor defense will limit his opportunities in the major leagues. Good luck. The Giants player development is terrible. Without free agents they would lose 100+ games every season.
@GiantsFanForever
Virtually every team would lose 100 games without FAs
Let’s start with the Dodgers, take away their FAs and tell me how many games they win with homegrown talent instead of
FAs Ohtani, Tucker, Freeman, T Hernandez, Muncy, E Diaz, Scott, Treinan, Snell, Sasaki, Yamamoto
Don’t forget trades:
Betts, Glasnow, Edmunds, Kike H
If you let them keep every player they traded the past 5 years along with their homegrown players and took away LA’s FAs they lose 100 games, take away their traded for players they lose another 20+
Nah. People only remember the development that doesn’t work out and only consider developing a superstar as a success. Plenty of Giants development in the middle ground.
Matos would be a nice RH platoon partner with Brandon Marsh in Philly. Right now, Otto Kemp seems to have that job, and I’m not sold on him.
He would be a great addition to Phillies. They should go heavy after him. He could easily be the 4th OF with a chance to take over RF next season. Very under rated prospect.
Joe: He would look good in Philadelphia but I have a gut feeling Yaz is already in the Braves ear about Matos. Until Profar screwed up again I think Yaz was going to platoon with Profar. Yaz is much better in a platoon which works good for possibly adding Matos. The Braves get the platoon they were looking for and Yaz and Matos have platooned in the past with the Giants at times. We’ll see what happens. I know Posey said we’d love to have him back. I’m sure he’ll get picked up and on the 40 man roster somewhere.
Jared Oliva can run and catch but, unless he has changed from his Pirates days, has a pool noodle for a bat. Good luck to him.
OBF: Run and catch is pretty much what he made the roster for and what he’ll be asked to do. He can also bunt for infield hits with the best of them. He can also get to more balls than Matos ever could in the outfield. Even though I still like Matos, keeping Oliva is the right move for the team. Oliva will be a key player in late game roles.
Oliva and Encarancion were another organization’s Matos. Neither worked out with their first organizations. Not sure why the idea is that either will work out better than Matos would this year. Sure, Oliva hit well in spring training and is fast, and Encarnacion is impressive in batting practice, but Oliva also was playing a full season in AA just two years ago (at the age of 28) and Encarnacion’s numbers were actually slightly worse than Matos’ this spring. Not sure any of these three are great options but I have doubts that Matos would be worse than either of these two. At his age, he may be more likely to figure something out than either of them.
@Baseball77
Correct, no way to know which, if any, of the 3 will become solid players
But their skill sets are different
JE ceiling is a power hitting/minus defender OF&1B—if they guessed right he can eventually platoon with Eldridge as DH/1B
Oliva ceiling is defensive replacement and pinch runner extraordinaire
Matos’ ceiling is Ramos and they already have that. He brings nothing as DH compliment and can’t play 1B and isn’t a SB threat
If Matos became the next Ramos then he’d be just fine as the DH. Its a gamble that Encarnacion would be better than Matos but the organization seems convinced he is the better option. I hope that they are correct.
“Toe” Matos! Sorry to see you go.