San Francisco Giants Roster Decision Could Force A’s into Action

Despite the A’s leaving Oakland and the Bay Area, they remain tied to the San Francisco Giants for a couple of reasons. The first, and most obvious, is that the Athletics are playing in Sacramento at the home of the Giants’ Triple-A affiliate River Cats. The plan is for the A’s and ‘Cats to share the venue through 2027, before the club makes their move to Las Vegas ahead of the 2028 campaign.

The other reason that the A’s are tied to the Giants right now is because their former first-round pick, Daniel Susac, is in Giants camp after he was selected by the Minnesota Twins in the Rule 5 Draft, and then traded to San Francisco. He’s looking to become the backup backstop behind Patrick Bailey.

The way the Rule 5 Draft works is that a player that is selected from their original team (in this case the A’s) has to stick on the 26-man roster (big-league roster) of the new team he’s with in order to remain with the new franchise. In other words, if Susac is removed from the Giants roster for any reason besides injury, he would be offered back to the A’s.

So far this spring, Susac is 10-for-29 (.345) with a .406 OBP, a home run, two RBI, three runs scored and a 9.4% walk rate. He’s also struck out 21.9% of the time and holds a high .429 BABIP. That said, his BABIP has routinely been above league average, so while it’s high, it’s a small sample and not necessarily out of the ordinary for his profile.

The expectation is that Susac will be making the Giants Opening Day roster next week when they take on the New York Yankees from Oracle on Netflix. So how does this impact the A’s?

Susac’s departure big deal for A’s plans

While Susac was blocked at the big-league level by A’s catcher Shea Langeliers, the hope was likely that he could be an option to back him up at some point this season, if he’d made it through the Rule 5 draft without being selected. Now that doesn’t appear to be an option for the club, unless the Giants decide to go a different direction later in the year.

With Susac out of the mix, that means that Langeliers is the A’s backstop for now and the future. Given Susac’s first round selection, you could see him being a potential starter as he developed. Now they don’t have another option like that in the minor leagues, and Langeliers only has three seasons of team control left with the A’s.

This could end up giving him a lot of leverage in the negotiations with the A’s on an extension, which is something that has come up of late. Given his relative proximity to free agency (compared to most of the roster at least) and his instrumental role on the roster, the A’s may have to sign Langeliers no matter what it takes.

A big reason for that is because Susac is now with the Giants.

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