After playing with only 25 players on the active roster during Monday’s victory over the Texas Rangers, the San Francisco Giants have finally filled out their roster for tonight’s game. Prior to the second game of the three-game series, the Giants announced that infielder Eddys Leonard had been called up from AAA Sacramento.
Leonard was not on the 40-man roster, but the Giants did not need to make a corresponding move since they had four open spots following their flurry of moves at the trade deadline.
The right-handed hitting Leonard is an interesting player, and he’s quite new to the organization. A 25-year old who was originally signed by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 2017 international signing period, Leonard joined the Giants as a Minor League free agent less than two weeks ago. In eight games with the River Cats, he only hit 4-28 … but all four of his hits were home runs, and he also drew five walks against seven strikeouts.
Prior to joining the Giants, Leonard had been having a strong season for the Milwaukee Brewers’ AAA affiliate, where he hit .287/.371/.502 with 12 home runs in 69 games, for a 128 wRC+. He has a good combination of power and contact ability, as he posted a .215 isolated slugging percentage with the Brewers affiliate, but just a 19.1% strikeout rate.
If you’re wondering why the Brewers let him go, well … for as impressive as those numbers are, it was his fourth year playing AAA ball. And while Leonard has some positional versatility — he’s played all four infield spots, plus both corner outfield positions this year — he doesn’t provide a lot of flexibility to a team, for an uncommon reason: despite having never played in the Majors, Leonard is already out of options. The Dodgers added Leonard to the roster as a Rule 5 protection before the 2022, even though he’d yet to make his AA debut. A few years and a few organizations later, Leonard was out of options and still in search of his big league debut.
Now he’ll get to make it. The Giants have used Leonard only as an infielder in AAA, but it seems likely that his first MLB playing time will come in the grass. After trading Heliot Ramos, the Giants have only three outfielders on their active roster: Jung Hoo Lee, Drew Gilbert, and Grant McCray. That stands in stark contrast to the five infielders (not including Leonard) competing for non-first base reps: Willy Adames, Christian Koss, Nate Furman, Osleivis Basabe, and Buddy Kennedy.
Still, the team had limited options. Jonah Cox is the only healthy outfielder on the 40-man roster who isn’t on the active roster, and the team clearly wants to see him get some actual development after a rushed debut stint. Cox, whose birthday is today, was activated from the Injured List earlier in the day, and optioned to Sacramento.
