Catcher Tromp, 11 others signed
Chadwick Tromp, who was Johnny Cueto’s personal catcher and packed a powerful swing, is returning to the Giants after agreeing to a majorleague deal.
The Giants announced the Tromp news Wednesday and also released the names of 11 players who signed minorleague deals and received invitations to bigleague training camp.
Tromp is back on the 40man roster but not guaranteed to make the Opening Day roster. The Giants are seeking a backup to Buster Posey, and both Posey and Tromp bat righthanded. An alternative would be for the backup to swing from the left side and have a deeper resume.
In his first bigleague season, Tromp, an Aruba native, hit .213 with a .219 onbase percentage in 24 games, but he has genuine power potential ( four homers) and is a reliable defender and favored target for pitchers, especially Cueto, who had difficulty working with Joey Bart.
Bart is among the Giants’ top prospects, but they believe he could gain from further minorleague experience and are leaning toward placing him in TripleA to start the season.
Ten of the 11 minorleague signings were pitchers, including Melvin Adon and Rico Garcia — the Giants had removed both ( along with Tromp) from the 40man roster before last week’s nontender deadline.
The other pitchers signed are Daniel Alvarez, Anthony Banda, Silvino Bracho, Dominic Leone, Sam Long, Yunior Marte, Raffi Vizcaino and Sam Wolff. Banda and Long are lefties. Long, 25, was drafted out of Sacramento State in the 18th round by the Rays in 2016.
Jason Krizan, 31, was the lone nonpitcher on the list. An eighthround pick by the Tigers in 2011, Krizan has played around the diamond, mostly at first base and the corneroutfield spots.
Yaz honored: Outfielder Mike Yastrzemski was acknowledged Thursday with a secondteam AllMLB selection. As part of a concept initiated in 2019, Major League Baseball honors players for their entire seasons — AllStar selections, by comparison, are based on the first half of a season.
Yastrzemski, 30, hit .297 with a .400 onbase percentage, .568 slugging percentage and 10 homers.
The firstteam outfielders were the Dodgers’ Mookie Betts, Angels’ Mike Trout and Nationals’ Juan Soto. Outfielders who joined Yastrzemski on the second team were Atlanta’s Ronald Acuña Jr. and the Mets’ Michael Conforto.