Prospect Beede, vet Vogt promoted
SAN FRANCISCO >> The Giants had a new position player arrive at Oracle Park on Wednesday, and they’ll have a new starting pitcher joining the club in Cincinnati on Friday. For a team that finished the month of April six games under .500 and seven games out in the National League West, additional changes are on the way.
Shortly after the Giants announced the promotion of catcher Stephen Vogt from Triple-A Sacramento, manager Bruce Bochy revealed that right-hander Tyler Beede will start Friday’s series-opener against the Reds.
Vogt signed as a minor league free agent this spring and took the place of pitcher
Logan Webb on the Giants’ 40-man roster. Webb was placed on the restricted list Wednesday after receiving an 80-game suspension following a positive test for a performance-enhancing drug.
“(Vogt) will do some catching, he can play first, he’s played left field and he’s a left-handed bat coming off the bench,” Bochy said.
Vogt took the 25-man roster spot of reliever Ty Blach, who was optioned to Triple-A Sacramento after allowing seven earned runs in 3 1/3 innings in a blowout 10-3 loss to the Dodgers on Tuesday. The Giants have not added Beede to the roster yet and are not required to do so until Friday, but Bochy said the club has been impressed with the 2014 first round draft pick’s performance in five Triple-A starts.
“You can see how much better he’s gotten,” Bochy said. “Just in the last year and from what you saw this spring, he carried it into Sacramento. He should feel good about where he’s at and his confidence should be way up there.”
Beede will start in place of Derek Holland, who was placed on the injured list Monday with a left index finger bone bruise. Holland’s injury isn’t serious and the left-hander could likely start this weekend if he was active, but the Giants wanted to evaluate Beede against major league hitters after the righthander posted a 1.99 ERA in 22 2/3 innings in April.
It’s unclear how the Giants will clear a 25-man roster spot for Beede, but the team has several options. The club rarely carries three catchers, but Bochy said the Giants are currently planning on bringing Vogt, starter Buster Posey
and reserve Erik Kratz on their seven-game trip.
That could change if the Giants are comfortable with Vogt serving as the primary backup to Posey, but Vogt underwent shoulder surgery last May and only caught in nine of the 17 games he played in Sacramento.
“It’s been a long road for him, going through what he had to go through on the rehab,” Bochy said. “He was determined to make it back up here, and he’s a guy that is known for being a great teammate and a leader. The bat is going to help us out.”
The Giants could wind up designating Kratz for assignment to create room for Beede, but there are other ways president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi can manipulate the roster in the coming days.
Vogt has experience in left field, so the Giants could option a struggling Steven Duggar to TripleA to allow the young outfielder to work on his plate discipline and cut down his strikeout percentage. Duggar is hitting .222 with a .265 OBP in 27 games, but he’s one of the best defensive outfielders on the club and the Giants would benefit from his presence in a spacious Coors Field outfield next week.
The Giants could also make a more surprising move and option second baseman Joe Panik, who has accrued just over four years of service time and is eligible to be sent to the minor leagues. Panik is hitting .202 and has been forced to the bench against left-handed starters so switch hitter Yangervis Solarte can start in his place at second base.
It’s also possible the Giants won’t need to option a position player as Bochy only committed to naming starters in the first two games of the team’s series against the Reds. With Beede set to pitch
Friday and Dereck Rodríguez in line to face Cincinnati on Saturday, Bochy did not announce whether Jeff Samardzija will make his scheduled start Sunday. Samardzija dealt with shoulder inflammation that limited him to 10 starts last year, but he’s shown no signs of fatigue thus far and was the Giants’ most consistent starter the first month of the season.
The Giants’ reluctance to announce their rotation beyond Saturday could indicate there’s uncertainty regarding the availability of Samardzija, Drew Pomeranz or one of the team’s relievers, but it may also be a hint the club is considering implementing an alternative pitching strategy such as “the Opener,” for the first time this weekend.
• Webb was suspended for 80 games after testing positive for a performance enhancing drug. Webb was off to a tremendous start to the season at Double-A Richmond but will now miss half the year after a steroid known as De hydrochlor methyl testosterone was found in his urine sample.
Webb, 22, released a statement Wednesday proclaiming his innocence and vowing that he did not knowingly take a performance-enhancing substance.
“I have done research, I have talked to people who know a lot more about it than I do, and I have sent in an endless amount of supplements and products for testing that I have used over the past couple years,” Webb said in a statement released by the Giants. “Unfortunately, none of those things have helped me find that answer, and the time for me to find the reason that this has happened has run out. I know in my heart that something someday will be put into the world to prove my innocence.”
Webb is considered the No. 5 prospect in the Giants’ farm system according to MLB.com and had posted a 2.00 ERA in his first five Double-A starts this year.
Webb is now one of three top Giants prospects who will miss a considerable amount of time during the first half of the season. The franchise’s No. 1 prospect, Joey Bart, is out with a broken hand while No. 2 prospect Heliot Ramos is sidelined for the next month with a knee injury.
Both Bart and Ramos began the season with Class A San Jose.