Welcome back to part two of our exploration of the San Francisco Giants’ non-roster invitees, this time dealing with the position players. We looked at the pitchers in the last installment, and if you’re looking for the NRIs who are likely to make a difference in 2026, that’s where you should start. When it comes to the position players, none of them are likely to crack the Opening Day roster.
Why, something unexpected would have to happen.
And you know how baseball hates that.
Did you hear thunder just now? That was odd. But it’s daylight outside.
Anyway, yes, there’s always a chance. And the path from random NRI to Opening Day participant doesn’t always have to be paved with injuries. Sometimes a player can hit the snot out of the ball or play with his hair on fire. Christian Koss spent a month doing both, and it’s why he might be on the Opening Day roster again this season.
Here are the 11 position players who got a non-roster invite to Giants camp this spring.
Catchers (3)Diego Cartaya
First, a general rule of thumb about catchers and spring training: Teams like to have a bunch of them around, especially early, when there are a lot of pitchers to work with. Don’t read too much into specific players or names.
That written, Cartaya is the Marco Luciano of catching, for better and (too often) worse. After he hit for an .892 OPS as a 20-year-old in A-ball, he became a consensus top-20 prospect for the Dodgers. Now he’s 24 and looking to get his career back on track after signing a minor-league deal with the Giants last year. He’s a career .230/.334/.423 hitter in the minors, which gives you an idea of his offensive profile — low average, some patience, some power. His defense has improved since he was a teenager, but it’s not so solid that you can guarantee he’d even be a good backup in the majors.
Still, the bat doesn’t have to set FanGraphs spinning for a catcher to be valuable, even if he can only catch just a little bit. He’s someone to watch this year (and he has a minor-league option left).
Odds you’ll see him this season: Low, but not impossible. Any sort of offense in Triple-A Sacramento for the River Cats will get him a lot of attention.
Eric Haase has 383 career games played in the major leagues. (Lon Horwedel / USA Today)
Eric Haase
Haase is the best Daniel Susac insurance the Giants are bringing into camp, depending on how you feel about Jesús Rodríguez’s defense. Haase is in the class of “good hitter … for a backup catcher” that the Giants have enjoyed over the years, from Nick Hundley to Curt Casali. Not good, exactly, but not as bad as most of the alternatives, offensively speaking. Haase has a career 87 OPS+ in more than 1,200 plate appearances, and that’s almost OK. Aggressively not awful.
It’s not the kind of offense that gets a guy a steady job, but it’s enough to get him attention from a team that has a wide-open competition for the backup position, especially when his defense is rock solid.
Haase is also oddly fast for a catcher. His sprint speed from last season (28.3 feet per second) would have been the third-fastest on the Giants, just ahead of Jung Hoo Lee. Put him on the bench and set him loose on the bases, in my opinion.
Odds you’ll see him this season: They’re excellent if he’s willing to accept an assignment to Sacramento, but even without that, Haase has a darned good chance to be the backup catcher out of spring. Susac is a fascinating idea for the Giants, and he could work out beyond this season, but it’s not easy to carry a Rule 5 pick all season, and the front office knows it.
Logan Porter
You might know Porter as one of the guys who messes up your “2025 Giants” Sporcle quiz, so I’m excited to announce that he has a shot to mess up your 2026 quizzes, too. He was a candidate for the backup job last season as well, and he eventually found his way onto the 40-man roster and into a couple games.
Porter didn’t do much in Sacramento last season, slugging .316 in a league with an average slugging percentage of .442, which gives you an idea of his lack of power.
Odds you’ll see him this season: Fairly low, but that’s what I would have said last season.
Infielders (5)Osleivis Basabe
Basabe is a 25-year-old utility infielder who can play a decent short and hit just enough to give him a chance. Also, my autocorrect keeps trying to change his name to “baseball,” which probably means something.
Odds you’ll see him this season: Low. It’s a rough time to be a jack-of-all-trades infielder in the system.
Nate Furman
Here’s a fun one. Furman was the player to be named later in the Alex Cobb deal with the Cleveland Guardians, which is looking like a steal so far. Jacob Bresnahan, also acquired in the trade, was Keith Law’s fourth-ranked prospect in the entire system, and Furman has impressed the brass enough to earn a look in big-league camp. Not bad for someone listed at 5-foot-8. (No idea if that’s his actual height. They usually fudge the numbers for the shorter kings, but maybe when they get down to 5-8, they say “screw it” and give up.)
Furman’s Giants career got off to a rocky start when he got hurt last spring, but when he got back to action in July, he hit … and hit … and hit. His longest stint was with High-A Eugene (96 PA), where he hit .364/.490/.649 with six home runs, but he finished the season in Double-A Richmond, where he hit .387/.486/.484. The 24-year-old is a career .291 hitter in the minors, with more walks than strikeouts, so he’s definitely a bat-control specialist, but he has surprising power, too.
Odds you’ll see him this season: Low. Again, infield is not the place for growth opportunity in this organization, and even if Furman hits the snot out of the ball in Double A, it’s hard to see him getting added to the 40-man roster before he needs to.
Buddy Kennedy played for both the Blue Jays and the Dodgers in 2025. (Kiyoshi Mio / Imagn Images)
Buddy Kennedy
Kennedy has been awful in 181 career PA in the majors (54 OPS+), but his career minor-league line is much better (.283/.379/.437), and it probably says something that he played in the majors for the Philadelphia Phillies, Toronto Blue Jays and Dodgers last season. Those were three teams with postseason aspirations, World Series dreams and talented 40-man rosters. All of them thought Kennedy was a guy worth having around, and all of them gave up a roster spot for him.
This isn’t to say that he’s the Giants’ secret weapon this year, but he’s been depth on much better teams than this one.
Odds you’ll see him this season: Low, but there’s always room for an infielder who can hit, even a little bit.
Parks Harber
This is the year we figure stuff out about Harber. He’s hit everywhere he’s gone, including in the Arizona Fall League, but he’s typically been older than his competition. He can only get prospect points taken away from him, then, until he starts raking in the upper minors. He’ll be in the upper minors this season. So let’s see it.
Until then, it still says something that the Giants are inviting him to camp. He has major-league exit velocity. Maybe that’s because he has a major-league bat?
Odds you’ll see him this season: Low, but it’s not like the Giants are going to slow play his development if he’s obliterating Pacific Coast League pitchers.
Jake Holton
Here’s someone to ask if you’re looking for restaurant recommendations in Erie, Pa. The soon-to-be-28-year-old was the starting first baseman for the Erie SeaWolves at the end of 2022 … and throughout 2023, 2024 and 2025. It’s hard even to get to Triple A when you’re carrying a low-.800s OPS as a first baseman in Double A. But he also had enough offensive skills to keep around.
He’ll probably help the River Cats this season, but he shouldn’t be an option for the Giants. (Although he’s from Los Gatos, so if he gets the call, you just might see shots of his family on the Giants broadcast of his first game. Might.)
Odds you’ll see him this season: Low.
Outfielders (3)Victor Bericoto
Bericoto has been in the Giants’ system since he was a teenager, and he re-signed with the team this offseason as a minor-league free agent. Over at There R Giants (subscription highly recommended), Giants farm director Kyle Haines described him as someone who could “become a solid right-handed bat off the bench to help us hopefully mid-season, late season if things go well.”
That was, however, before the Harrison Bader signing, so the plans have certainly changed in that respect. Still, that gives you the idea of what the Giants are looking for in Bericoto: a right-handed, fourth-outfield type. He has the power to be a good one if he can control the strike zone better.
Odds you’ll see him this season: Low, although they improve dramatically if Luis Matos doesn’t make the roster out of spring.
Bo Davidson
Easy, raw power. A working idea of the strike zone. There’s a lot to like about Davidson, and I wrote about him here. The article was about players you might see this season.
Odds you’ll see him this season: Still pretty danged low. There’s no rush here. The reason Wade Meckler was recently DFA’d and outrighted by the Los Angeles Angels is because the Giants added him to the 40-man roster way before they had to. They shouldn’t make that mistake again.
Jared Oliva
I had no idea who Oliva was until the Giants released the NRI list, so I left him for the very end as a little treat to myself. We’ll get to find out who he is together.
So, let’s see. His name is pronounced “oh-live-ah,” which is going to be exceptionally hard for baseball fans to get used to. The last time he appeared in the majors was 2021, and he’s 30 now. He’s put up solid numbers in Triple A over the last three seasons, but nothing that warranted another call-up.
He’s getting an invite, though, because he can play a legitimate center field. You want at least one more of those in your system than you need.
Odds you’ll see him this season: Low, but mostly because Grant McCray is still on the roster.