The San Francisco Giants are heading into an offseason with plenty on their plate, and the roster crunch is already looming large. By November, the club will need to activate 17 players from the 60-day injured list, and because those players don’t count against the 40-man roster during the season, they’ll suddenly become part of the equation once the offseason begins. That creates a major headache for president of baseball operations Buster Posey and his staff.
Free agency, though, doesn’t bring a long list of decisions. The Giants simply don’t have many players set to hit the market, which means the focus stays pretty narrow.
One of the names to watch is Knizner, a catcher whose value has always come from his defense and his ability to manage a game. That profile has kept him around since 2019 with the St.
Louis Cardinals, and it’s helped him appear in 355 games overall, including portions of the last two seasons with San Francisco. At the plate, his career line sits at .212/.281/.319.
The Giants could bring him back on a one-year deal to serve as the backup to Daniel Susac, and his last salary was $1 million.
Brubaker is another potential return, and this would be his first time entering unrestricted free agency after he signed for $1.8 million to avoid arbitration last offseason. He worked in 41 games for San Francisco last season and did not factor into a decision, but he posted a 3.58 ERA with 39 strikeouts and 26 walks.
Since coming over from the New York Yankees in the middle of the 2025 season, he’s given the Giants innings, and a low-cost one-year deal could make sense again. Based on the market, it wouldn’t be difficult for San Francisco to keep him.
Wick’s situation is a little different. He isn’t technically a free agent, but the Giants do have an $800,000 club option for the 2027 season.
If the team passes on that option, he still wouldn’t have the service time to become a full free agent on his own. The wrinkle here is that he missed the entire season because of injury, which opens the door for San Francisco to non-tender him or release him as a cost-saving move before potentially signing him later as a free agent.
Still, the more likely outcome is that the Giants pick up the option. Either way, he’s a name worth keeping an eye on.
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Buster Posey has publicly sounded upbeat about the clubs chances of getting back into contention next year, but optimism alone will not cover all the gaps. San Francisco is also looking at internal competition behind the plate while trying to sort out an infield that needs a cleaner mix, so this offseason could wind up defining how quickly the Giants can turn the page. [Read more 🡒]