SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — You could argue that the San Francisco Giants have benefited more from the boomerang effect than any major league club.
Their list of successful second acts includes Ryan Vogelsong, who transformed himself from non-roster invitee to postseason bulldog, Conor Gillaspie, who hit a three-run home run to win the 2016 National League wild-card game over the New York Mets, and of course, Travis Ishikawa, whose home run clinched the pennant and set off a sonic boom in China Basin in 2014. Pablo Sandoval enjoyed his second act so much that he tried for a third.
Gregory Santos would love to add his name to the ledger. A little more than three years after the Giants designated him for assignment and traded him to the Chicago White Sox, the right-handed reliever and former top prospect is back this spring as a non-roster invitee. Santos, 26, returns with much more big league experience, having pitched in 60 games for the White Sox in 2023 and appearing eight times for the Seattle Mariners in each of the past two seasons. He also returns in his best condition in years, having fully recovered from knee surgery.
And he still has the gift that made him a top prospect whose name was mentioned in the same breath as All-Star closer Camilo Doval: a two-seam fastball that routinely exceeds 100 mph. Santos showed off that two-seamer in his exhibition debut on Monday against the Athletics, pitching around two hits and a walk. The A’s helped him out with some bad fundamentals while running into two outs on the bases, but the stuff was what jumped out. Santos’ fastball was 97-99 mph and touched 100 twice
“In his last live outing before today, he was kind of oozing with enthusiasm of just being out there,” Giants manager Tony Vitello said of Santos. “And today, you can see more of an eagerness to just do well, which is understandable. All these guys are competing for a lot of different stuff, but that there was a little bit of a presence. … It was really cool how enthusiastic and confident he was and he was letting it rip today.”
“I feel really good for the opportunity that has been given to me,” Santos said. “I think that I am home.”
A lot of the faces have changed in the clubhouse and the coaching staff is entirely different, but Santos was happy to renew acquaintances with Logan Webb, Trevor McDonald, Keaton Winn and a few others that he knew from his first stint with the organization. And there’s one other player in the room who goes back with Santos even longer.
“Rafael Devers,” Santos said. “I have known him since I was 15 years old.”
It’s easy to forget that Santos wasn’t signed by the Giants. He came to them in the white-flag deal that sent Eduardo Nuñez to the Boston Red Sox at the trade deadline in 2017. Santos didn’t play with Devers while coming up in the Red Sox system — he’s three years younger — but their paths crossed plenty of times at the organization’s complex in the Dominican Republic.
What was Devers like as a 19-year-old prospect?
“He was thinner, but he was strong,” said Santos, who was a lot skinnier back then as well. “It’s great to see all the success he’s had.”
The Nuñez trade was a rarity for former general manager Brian Sabean, who rarely sold at the deadline even when the team had the most tenuous hopes of contending. The Giants even added when they were 14 games under .500 at the trade deadline in 2005, when Sabean acquired Randy Winn from the Seattle Mariners for Jesse Foppert and Yorvit Torrealba. But there was no hiding from a 40-67 record at the end of July in 2017. All the Giants’ best-laid plans blew up, and they ended up losing 98 games that season. It was the one occasion in which Sabean relented and became an aggressive seller.
“Historically, Brian would never want to see the team dip as low as we were dipping,” said Giants senior advisor Bobby Evans, who was the assistant GM at the time. “Nuńez was the one player that seemed to create traction in deals. Brian was willing to make that sacrifice because the season wasn’t panning out.”
They got back useful players. Right-hander Shaun Anderson reached the big leagues before the next Giants administration, headed by Farhan Zaidi, traded him for LaMonte Wade Jr., who was a solid contributor for several seasons. The other player the Giants received from the Red Sox was Santos, who had pitched in just 24 games in the Dominican Summer League. Giants international scout Felix Peguero had seen Santos in an All-Star Game in the Dominican and recommended him as a big-equipment guy.
When Santos reached the big leagues, debuting five days after Doval lit up radar guns, he also made an impression on his catcher. Curt Casali was behind the plate for Santos’ scintillating first appearance, but Buster Posey, the Giants’ current president of baseball operations, caught his other two outings that season.
Then came the setbacks and wounds, including some self-inflicted. An 80-game suspension for a positive drug test in 2021 combined with bouts of wildness in the minor leagues stalled his progress, and when the Giants needed to create a 40-man roster vacancy before the 2023 season, Santos was the low man on the depth chart. The club designated him for assignment and traded him to the White Sox for an organizational player.
His knee injury last season led to the Mariners’ non-tendering him. Santos was looking for a new home. It helped that his old organization was eager to welcome him back. And Posey wasn’t the only member of the current front office who was eager to give Santos a shot to add fuel to an unsettled bullpen.
“I feel like getting him back is a real coup for us,” Evans said. “He’s familiar with the organization, and I think he’s really matured both physically and as a young man. So the timing is really good. His arm strength has always been really good. This is the right time to let it show.”
The Giants might be less inclined than most teams to prioritize organizational inventory over merit when choosing the last spots on their Opening Day roster. But the bullpen is as open as a spring competition can be. Some of their homegrown pitchers are off to encouraging starts, including Blade Tidwell, who did his best Robb Nen impression Saturday while dominating the Mariners with his slider, and McDonald, who touched 97 mph in an inning Monday against the A’s. All of those pitchers have minor league options, though.
If Santos has a dominant spring and fills up the strike zone with his 100 mph sinker and 93 mph slider, then he should be in an excellent position to claim a role somewhere in the bullpen hierarchy.
“We’ve had some rough-draft conversations, but right now, it’s a lot more open than maybe people internally think, or guys in the locker room,” Vitello said. “There’s a lot of openness for several spots.”