The Giants have every reason to be upbeat about Randy Rodríguez right now. In the Arizona Fall League, he has opened with a strong first outing and then backed it up with another scoreless appearance, one in which he was touching 98 miles per hour. That kind of showing matters after the year he’s had.
But encouraging as that is, it still shouldn’t push San Francisco into penciling him in as the closer for 2027.
Rodríguez was electric in the first half of 2025, when he was nearly impossible to square up and earned an All-Star selection. Then came the trade deadline, when the Giants dealt away Tyler Rogers and Camilo Doval and asked Rodríguez to handle the ninth inning.
The results weren’t there. He converted only four of seven save chances after moving into that role.
That wasn’t a one-off issue, either. As a rookie in 2024, he didn’t convert either of his two save opportunities.
Across his major league career, he has four saves in nine chances when used in the ninth inning. Even in the minors, he wasn’t someone who piled up saves, so finishing games just hasn’t been part of his routine.
There’s also the obvious caveat that Rodríguez may have been pitching through elbow trouble while trying to close in the second half of 2025 before the Giants shut him down and he eventually had surgery. Still, that’s exactly why it would be risky to assume he can simply slide back into that job coming off Tommy John.
The better path for the Giants is to bring in a real closer this offseason. Even a short-term move, like a one-year deal for Kenley Jansen or a similar veteran option, would give them a much clearer setup than going into 2027 without knowing who gets the ninth inning.
That doesn’t mean Rodríguez can’t end up there eventually. If he looks like the same pitcher he was earlier in 2025, he could grow into the role during the season. But to begin the year, the safer and more sensible approach is to keep him in the sixth or seventh inning, the same kind of usage he had before the deadline.
That setup worked for San Francisco when the bullpen was rolling in 2025. Ryan Walker struggled in the closer role, but once Camilo Doval took over the ninth, the late innings had a clear shape: Rodríguez in the seventh, Rogers in the eighth, and Doval finishing things off.
Rogers is gone now, but the blueprint still makes sense in a different form. A 2027 late-game plan built around Rodríguez in the seventh, Doval in the eighth, and someone like Jansen in the ninth would give the Giants a much more stable answer at the end of games.
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Giants Still Have One Roster Problem They Cant Ignore Before 2027
Buster Poseys front-office overhaul has given the Giants a different feel heading into the 2026 season, with Tony Vitello stepping in as manager and the organization trying to pull itself out of a long stretch of inconsistency since the 2014 title. The club has made the postseason only twice in that span, and the current roster still carries obvious work to do after a season that exposed needs across the bullpen, the rotation and the lineup.
San Francisco is banking on a few core pieces to help turn the corner, with Camilo Doval still a key arm in relief and Rafael Devers and Bryce Eldridge among the bats expected to matter in the near future. Even so, the biggest question is whether the Giants can solve the lingering roster flaw that continues to hang over the franchise as it looks past 2026 and toward a more complete team in 2027. [Read more 🡒]
Camilo Doval Just Gave Giants Fans A Real Bullpen Debate
Camilo Dovals winding 2026 season ended where so much of his early career was defined, back in a Giants uniform. After getting dealt from San Francisco to the Yankees and then to the Pirates before returning late in the year, Doval finished with two scoreless innings in his final appearances for the club, giving the Giants at least one more look at a familiar arm before the offseason arrived.
Now the front office has a choice to make, and it is not a small one for a bullpen that always seems to be under a microscope in San Francisco. The Giants must decide whether to offer Doval a contract or non-tender him, while also weighing what his place might be in the 2027 relief mix if he stays in the organization. [Read more 🡒]
Giants Offseason Pitching Search May Come Down To One Key Choice
The Giants offseason pitching search is starting to take shape around a familiar kind of question: do they chase proven upside, or lean toward healthier, more stable arms that could fit more cleanly into next years plans? Among the names being floated are Freddy Peralta, Brandon Woodruff, Antonio Senzatela and JoJo Romero, a group that reflects just how wide the market could be for San Francisco as it looks to bolster a staff that always seems to be one of the central talking points in the winter.
Peralta and Woodruff bring the sort of front-line appeal that can change a rotations ceiling, but both come with recent injury concerns that any club would have to weigh carefully. Senzatela and Romero offer a different kind of decision, with their recent performance and contract situations making them more attainable depending on how the market develops. For the Giants, the real challenge may be choosing which version of pitching help to prioritize before the bidding even gets serious. [Read more 🡒]