Minor Moves: 40-Man Roster, Signings

With the Rule 5 Draft only a couple of weeks away, the San Francisco Giants have added Chase Johnson, Dan Slania, Miguel Gomez, Orlando Calixte, and Reyes Moronta to the 40-man roster to fill out the team’s remaining roster spots.

Of the five players added, Calixte sticks out as the most intriguing prospect. I previously discussed Calixte in a previous article, but in short, the 24-year-old career minor leaguer has a solid combination of glove and power, a combination which would surely draw intrigue from other teams. Despite his pedestrian minor league career, last season Calixte showed signs of improvement, posting a slash line of .274/.324/.420 with 11 home runs.

Gomez, 23, is coming off easily the best season of his professional career, totaling a slash line of .330/.363/.519 with 17 home runs with a strikeout rate and isolated-power figure better than league average. The switch-hitter split time with Augusta and San Jose and considerably struggled following his promotion, posting a slash line of .371/.401/.532 with the latter, but .267/.302/.500 with the former. Before the 2015 season, Gomez spent three seasons overseas playing in the Dominican Summer League, batting .300+ in the last two seasons and taking home an MVP. In his first season on American soil, Gomez kept raking the ball, hitting .319 with six home runs in 284 plate appearances. He also posted a 22-game hitting streak, challenging the NWL record. The catcher-turned-third baseman will need to improve his ability to draw walks, recording only 25 in two seasons with Augusta, San Jose, and Salem-Keizer.

Slania, 24, was constantly on the move last season, jumping from Single-A to Triple-A by the end of the season thanks to a solid season both in the bullpen and starting rotation, posting a 2.93 ERA in 119.2 innings with a K/9 of 8.38. Although he split time between starting and relieving, Slania’s contrast in performance proved he is best utilized from the jump, posting a 2.53 ERA as a starter compared to a 5.08 ERA out of the pen. His fastball tops out at 93 while hovering in the low-90s despite his menacing frame of 6’5” and 275 lbs, but it does get a bit of sink. Slania utilizes both an 11-5 curveball and slider, both of which he can control fairly well and will throw when behind in the count.

Moronta, 23, spent all of last season with the San Jose Giants, but after a successful 2016 campaign in which he recorded a minor-league career-high 14.19 K/9 with the second lowest BB/9 since 2011, the right-handed reliever should expect a well-deserved promotion. The right-hander spent the first half of the season as San Jose’s set-up man, but inherited the closer role after the Giants promoted Rodolfo Martinez to Double-A. Right-handed hitters dreaded having to face Moronta and his combination of an overpowering triple digit fastball and late-breaking slider, only hitting .131 while striking out in half their plate appearances against him.

Johnson, 24, didn’t enjoy the same success this season with the Richmond Flying Squirrels as he did with San Jose in 2015, posting a 3.27 ERA with a decent K/9 of 6.36 and BB/9 of 3.10 while gravitating into more of a relief role. The former 3rd round pick has upped the velocity on his fastball since the Giants drafted him, upping it from a max of 94 MPH in college to 96 MPH in the minors. Despite a solid fastball, his control, as well as his changeup and slider, are below average, which has hurt him as he transitioned from Single-A to Double-A.

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The San Francisco Giants have reached an agreement with both Michael Roth and Juniel Querecuto on a pair of minor-league deals, as reported by Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle and Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times on Twitter, respectively.

Roth, 26, has appeared in three seasons at the big league level with the Los Angeles Angels and Texas Rangers but has not found success, posting a 8.50 ERA in just 36.0 innings. The southpaw spent nearly his entire season with the Round Rock Express, Texas’s Triple-A affiliate, putting together a 2.97 ERA over 145.1 innings.

Querecuto, 24, fought his way to the Show last season, beginning the season in Double-A but eventually earning a call-up by the Tampa Bay Rays in late-September, where he only tallied one hit in 11 PAs. Last season in the minors, Querecuto had a .241/.298/.341 slash line with three home runs.

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