Way Too Early Preview: Sacramento River Cats

Photo by Ashley Landis | Associated Press

This is the fourth and final installment in a series of “way too early” roster previews for the Giants’ four full-season affiliates. So far, we’ve fake-GM’d up a roster for:

• Low A San Jose Giants

• High A Eugene Emeralds

• Double A Richmond Flying Squirrels

I’m a completionist at heart — I’m the sort who reads books or watches TV series to the end even if I’m long since given up on them as satisfying experiences (yep, still thinking about you, Lost). That’s the reason why I complete these “way too early” roster preview series with an installment covering the Sacramento squad, despite the palpable futility of such an exercise. Last year, 39 players whom the Giants acquired last winter — or even later — suited up for the River Cats. Thirty-nine guys who weren’t even a glimmer in my eye when I took up the laptop to try this out a year ago. If I could count “TBDs” as correct guesses, I suppose I did pretty well! But really, the 2022 Sacramento squad will, almost certainly, be made up of a lot of players who aren’t Giants just yet, and they will, like the 40-man, keep on churning, churning, churning as we make our way through the season (always hoping that there actually is a 2022 season at the major league level).

The better framing for that, of course, is that last year’s River Cats also included more than a dozen players who contributed greatly to the most successful regular season in Giants’ history — from Camilo Doval to “Late Night” LaMonte, from Dominic Leone to the inspiring comeback story of Scott Kazmir, from Thairo Estrada (not acquired until April!) to the one and only Mike Tauchman, who is almost certainly the answer to the question: who will be the longest and most fondly remembered Giant with the shortest actual Giants’ playing career, the 2022 Sacramento River Cats roster was a constantly flowing river, refreshing the big league roster with every incoming tide.

And thus it will certainly be in the coming season, as Farhan and Co. seek for every edge they can find, look under every pillow that may be covering some talent to be converted into wins. Still, I do like seeing projects to their end and, unlike last year, I can actually contrive a full roster out of pieces we have on hand. So let’s plunge on, shall we?