Giants will have another outfielder with Bay Area ties
It has been one modus operandi of Farhan Zaidi's to stock the San Francisco Giants' roster with players who grew up in the baseball-rich Bay Area, and Monday they reportedly agreed to bring one more into big league camp this spring.
The latest local is outfielder Stephen Piscotty, who signed a minor-league deal with an invitation to MLB spring training, according to FanSided insider Robert Murray. The club has not yet announced the move, or its full list of nonroster invitees.
If Piscotty makes the roster, he would reportedly earn slightly more than the major-league minimum — a salary of $1 million, according to Murray — and likely wouldn't even need to talk to a real estate agent.
Piscotty, 32, played the past five seasons in Oakland, where he was traded from St. Louis after the 2017 season, in part to help him be closer with his mom, who was battling ALS at the time and has since passed away. He was born in Pleasanton and starred at Amador Valley High School and Stanford, before being drafted 36th overall by the Cardinals in 2012.
Piscotty enjoyed the best season of his career in his first year with the A's, batting .267 with a career-high 27 home runs in 2018 (an .821 OPS, 24% better than the ballpark-adjusted league average). Over the past four seasons, however, he has totaled only 28 home runs with a .229 average (a .665 OPS, 16% below the ballpark-adjusted league average).
The A's had a $15 million club option for Piscotty in 2023, but they released him last August despite being on the hook for the remainder of his $7.6 million 2022 salary and a $1 million buyout on his 2023 option. He briefly found a home on a minor-league deal with Cincinnati, where he played in 24 Triple-a games with a .767 OPS.
Over eight big-league seasons, Piscotty has hit .255/.324/.430 (a .754 OPS) with 93 career homers.
For the Giants, Piscotty provides some right-handed hitting depth in the outfield behind Austin Slater and Mitch Haniger alongside a more robust group of lefties (Mike Yastrzemski, Michael Conforto, Joc Pederson, Lamonte Wade Jr. and Luis González).
Piscotty is the second Pleasanton-raised player on the roster, after shortstop Brandon Crawford, whose time at Foothill High predated Piscotty's at nearby Amador Valley by four years. He is also the third Bay Area native in the Giants' outfield alone, which already includes Palo Alto's Joc Pederson and Santa Clara's Mitch Haniger.
“Another Bay Area, Norcal guy. Always love having more of those guys here,” Logan Webb, a Rocklin native, said at fan fest. He was talking about Kyle Harrison, a De La Salle (Concord) graduate and the Giants' top pitching prospect, who could be their next truly farm-to-table Bay Area local to star for his hometown team.
Not yet mentioned: Elk Grove's J.D. Davis, Santa Rosa's Scott Alexander or Fair Oaks' Sam Long.
“We've had really good experiences with those players,” Zaidi said in December. “I just think we believe — it's not just like a marketing gimmick — players like being comfortable. It helps them succeed and perform well. We've seen it time and time again. These guys are all good players, wherever they play. We just think playing for us can help them get to another level because of that comfort level.”
The Giants are one of the last remaining teams yet to release their full list of nonroster invitees — it is expected sometime this week (camp opens next Wednesday, after all).