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If you haven’t yet, read the notes about trades at the Batters page, here are the pertinent highlights.
We all know that there is a ferocious amount of money involved in the contracts of the men I urge be traded away. The total currently committed just for 2027 is $85 million. Many say that those outlandish contracts make a trade for any of these men virtually impossible. That is nonsense.
Mind, the Johnsons appear to have just that: non-sense. But Buster Posey majored in finance: he should and assuredly knows what a “sunk cost” is. If you don’t know, and don’t feel like following the link, here it is, per Wikipedia:
OK, now on to the men who should constitute the staff.
Adrian Houser is the pitcher they need to move out. His 2027 salary would be $12.5 million, plus there would be a $4 million cost to buy him out of 2028: that’ $16.5 million the Giants are currently on the hook for him. His TPP for the year to date is 774, which is Not A Good Thing. Granted, his numbers as a reliever have been much better than those as a starter (which latter is what he was signed to be). I don’t have TPP splits, but if we use his OPS-yielded ratios as a guide, his estimated TPP as a starter would be 866, which is utterly dreadful, while his estimated TPP as a reliever would be 568, which is fairly good. But is even a fairly good right-handed middle reliever worth $16.5 million? Really? That TPP doesn’t even make the top 50 for reasonably regular relievers this season. You make the call.
As noted on the Basics page, there are numerous schemes for using pitchers. The one I will use—though not saying it is the best possible, though it may well be the best possible now without going revolutionary—is five starters, six later-inning relievers (two each for the 7th, 8th, and 9th innings (two per inning so one doesn’t have to try using the same men day after day), and two pure “fireman” relievers for when someone gets into trouble.
To show that such an arrangement is not terribly difficult to manage even with just the men the Giants currently have, here is a table of my suggested pitchers, showing a possible use pattern as well as their current 2026 and career stats (those get updated daily). Mind, as you will see several of the choices are more future hope than present achievement, especially for left-handed relievers, but it’s a starting point. (Farther down the page, I list some plausible alternatives for pitching—guys who, to me, just don’t make the cut but are close enough to think more about.)
Stats are entering 13 September 2026.
Desired maximum = 605
.........TPP........ ............OPS...........
Pitcher career 2025 2026 Last28 Last14 Last7 Year
=============================================================================
starters:
Logan Webb + 572 593 589 .934 .868 .503 .643
Blade Tidwell + 881 ---- 661 .805 .729 .958 .704
César Perdomo * 708 ---- 708 .756 .756 .753 .756
Hayden Birdsong +
Joe Whitman *
=============================================================================
inning 7:
Jason Foley + ? 595 ---- 877 .692 .688 .452 .730
Sam Hentges * ??? 673 ---- 731 .710 ---- ---- .650
inning 8:
Dylan Smith + 560 ---- 724 .783 .742 .792 .685
Matt Gage * ??? 750 656 1118 ---- ---- ---- .873
inning 9:
Randy Rodriguez +
Matt Wilkinson * ? 937 ---- 937 .788 1.015 .286 .788
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
relief:
Yunior Marté + 552 ---- 552 .649 .674 .528 .649
Trent Harris + 510 ---- 510 .491 .578 .804 .615
=============================================================================
The pitcher selections want some comment, and here it is, man by man. We’ll begin with the rotation.
Logan Webb. Webb needs little comment: his career 572 TPP is excellent, and his 2027-to-date TPP of 589 supports it. The one possible issue with him is overwork. He consistently is high among the MLB leader in innings pitched (in 2025, he led all of MLB pitchers; in 2024, he was 3rd; in 2023, he was first). One has fears that they are over-working him to an extent that may shorten his useful career duration. But he is still #1 for 2027.
Blade Tidwell. He has looked good—excellent at times—but he is not yet proven as a starter. (He has been quite satisfactory as a reliever: using OPS splits as a proportioning measure, his relief TPP is 585, while as a starter it is 686.) But he is young and still a bit raw: there is reasonable hope that he could bring that starter TPP down to under 600 in 2027. Though that remains just a hope for now, I include him in the rotation (I list him second, but really, the rotation order is not critical).
César Perdomo. His MLB experience is limited but good: TPP of 708, even after one bad start. But his MiLB stats below AAA strongly suggest a quality starter (and he was getting better in AAA, so much so that he earned his promotion to the majors). Though there is some risk, I feel comfortable using him in the 2027 rotation (especially as lefties are currently much wanted there).
Hayden Birdsong. Birdsong was chock full of promise when he came up in 2024, but that season and the next did not fulfill that promise. Whenever he returns from his TJ recovery (which might be as late as June of 2027), there remain high hopes. Right now, that’s all they can be, hopes, but I have pencilled him into the 2027 rotation. Hopes, hopes, hopes…
Joe Whitman. Why this man has received so little attention is a mystery. His MiLB ERAs are not stunning, but neither are they poor. In the EL this year he was 3.22, which earned him a promotion to Sacramento, where he is currently 3.82—in a league where the average ERA is 5.40! The ever-estimable Roger Munter has had nice things to say about Whitman (follow the link, then search down to “Ok, let’s talk Joe Whitman! ”). In his 2026 “Top 50” list, Whitman is the 25th ranked prospect in the organization; in his later “Top 30” list, Whitman had risen to #17. Will I put him in the rotation for 2027? You bet! Not MLB-tested and proven yet, but a leftie with that pedigree…
OK, now we’ll move to the bullpen. In the table, I segregated relievers into 7th-inning, 8th-inning, and 9th-inning men, but the assignment of whom to which is almost arbitrary. I also list two men as “relief”, meaning “fireman”, those who come in to bail out a problem situation (in any inning where the situation has significant leverage). This is where even hopes get a bit shaky, but let’s see.
Jason Foley. Here is another man with a very nice history (career TPP of 588) but sidelined by an injury. He is still working his way back, and recovery seems so far to be proceeding apace. I feel comfortable tentatively assigning him to the ’pen for 2027 (I list him as the 7th-inning rightie).
Sam Hentges. Here is yet another man with a decent history (TPP 673, somewhat high but far from awful awful) and a similar 2026 (TPP 731, high and this time bordering on not good). I suspect he may not be a good add to the 2027 ’pen, but MLB-ready lefties are so scarce in the organization right now that he is probably better than anyone likely to be considered in his stead. I have lightly pencilled him in as the 7th-inning leftie.
Dylan Smith. He seems to have jumped out of nowhere to a major bullpen role. But he did not in fact spring out of nowhere: he has a quite nice MiLB pedigree (MiLB career ERA of 3.93 and two-season major-league ERA of 2.72). His current ERA of 3.24 (TPP of 745) is somewhat sequence- and luck-driven, being hurt a bit by the way he has been used: sometimes too frequently, and sometimes in bad situations. His first four months of the season went smoothly; only since August has he had any difficulties. I see him as a steady, solid add to the ’pen, and have tentatively assigned him the 8th rightie role.
Matt Gage. There are some questions about Gage. His career TPP is an unhealthy 750, but… looking at it year-by-year, his TPPs are fairly good; the career total is badly dragged down by his catastrophic June and July of this year (ERAs of, respectively, 18.00 and 40.50), which we can now reasonably write off to his pitching while hurt, which led to his now being on the 60-day IL. His 2026 ERAs prior to the injury were 1.42 and 2.61 (for April & May). My reckoning is that if he recovers OK from the elbow injury, he would be a worthy (and, as a leftie, especially valuable) member of the ’pen. I tentatively assigned him a role as the 8th-inning leftie.
Randy Rodriguez. The only question here is whether and how soon he can recover from his arm surgery. In 2025, he was phenominally successful (ERA of 1.78, TPP not available). With fingers crossed (a hard way to type), I assign him the 9th-inning rightie role. We hope he will recover well enough to keep it.
Matt Wilkinson. He is quite an outlier. His velocity tops out around 90 mph, but something about his delivery somehow makes it remarkably successful. The key to best use of “Tugboat” is to use him only an inning at a time, lest opposing batters get too used to that quirky delivery. Attempting to start him is disastrous. Using OPS-yielded to proportion his ugly overall TPP of 937, we get a horrid 1006 TPP as a starter, but a lovely 340 TPP as a reliever. I know, I know: SSS; but I really think he can be a welcome add to the bullpen, even as a 9th_inning complement to Rodriguez, and I have so assigned him.
Yunior Marté. Another question mark: a nice TPP of 552 in his brief major-league career, but not an MiLB pedigree that excites. The Giants have jumped him up rather quickly: in 2025, he was in low-A ball; in 2026, he has been in high-A, AA, and then right to the majors. Partly it was out of crying need for arms, with all the IL victims; but still, they must have seen something there. Remember, he is only 23 right now, so there is legitimate hope that he can mature enough to be a fireman in the 2027 ’pen (and I have pencilled him in accordingly). And if he is not quite good enough to be trusted with raging fires, well, it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to make Rodriguez the key fireman and let Marté be one of the by-inning guys.
Trent Harris. Harris has quietly but steadily worked his way up to the majors, leaving a trail of low ERAs behind him. His brief (so far) career in the majors is just what one would expect from his history: a TPP of 510. That makes him a fine candidate for the second “fireman” fole in the bullpen, and I have so listed him.
The best source of information on Giants prospects is from Roger Munter’s Substack There R Giants (some access free, full access modest subscription).
Those men not listed above who might be relevant in 2027 are shown below, in two lists, men currently already at the major-league level and men still in the minors. The links in both cases are to each man’s Baseball-Reference page.
Though these two are now only at high-A, there is precedent for rapid jumps up for pitchers (consider Yunior Marté), so they indeed might possibly make the 2027 team, even if only around the All-Star break. (After the numerous recent callups, there are no pitchers of likely use left at AAA or AA.)
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