BUILDING MOMENTUM: Giants Trying to Set the Tone for 2027

0:00This is the Lockdown Podcast Network celebrating 10 years of your team every day. Today's episode is brought to you by the Dell XPS. I'm Wes Goldberg from Lockdown NBA Daily and Lockdown Heat. So what does it feel like to have a better laptop like the Dell XPS powered by Intel Core? With a premium design that's thin and light, it feels smooth. With a responsive touch screen, it feels fast and precise. And with long lasting battery life, it feels like non-stop energy with a laptop that can keep up. Built for those who want better, the Dell XPS. Built for you. Is there any world where the Giants gained some momentum for the 2027 season?

1:15It's all coming up on Lockdown Giants. You are Lockdown Giants. Your daily San Francisco Giants Podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. What's up y'all? Welcome to Lockdown Giants, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network. My name is Alan Styles talking Giants baseball with you Monday through Friday and today is no different. The Giants coming off of a walkoff. We will talk about if they can turn some things around. Could they gain some momentum heading into the 2027 season? A couple transactions with some names you may or may not probably not be familiar with from the Giants as it continue to make shift in Paper Meshay, the roster to end the season and a profile on another infielder. But bit of an older guy that we haven't talked about at all has just cracked the Giants top 30 prospect list for m-i-l-b dot com Lorenzo Miola.

2:20Okay, today's episode is brought to you by Fandool, get $350 in bonus bets guaranteed when you bet $5 every day for seven days. Join all the action at fandool dot com. So we start with the Giants obviously walking off the cardinals and it's a really a feel good situation, Logan Webb. We didn't know if he would continue to start games. I was of the mindset that maybe he shouldn't. But he did and he went out there and he pitched well and we know that it's kind of been every other for Logan Webb lately and he followed with that trend and he goes six innings pitched, gave up three hits, one earned run, two walks and eight strikeouts. Heavy strikeout day for Logan Webb. So that was really nice to see Trent Harris got in there along with Dylan Smith who did give up a run. He pitched a inning and two thirds. You have Reaver Sam Martin who pitched a third and Jason Foley who pitched two innings

3:21and gave up a hit. And on the offensive side, obviously Shay Witt come another newcomer to the Giants. He had the walkoff hit that kind of high chopper that got to the shortstop and they were able to score Bryce Eldridge tied up the ballgame. He was two for four with three RBI's, Raffi Devers, no home run last night, but he was two for three with two walks as well. They're starting to try to pitch around him, Jung Huli with a knock of Slavez Bessabé with a knock and Christian Kass with a knock. So that's what they did on the cardinal side. McGreevy went six in two thirds innings, six hits, two earned runs, two walks and four strikeouts. So the Giants, you know, they're at Oracle Park. They walk it off. The vibes are great. Everybody is feeling good. And Logan Webb himself has basically talked about how things feel a little bit different,

4:22right? Then they felt the at the beginning of the season. Here's his quote, the standings don't show it, but I think recently we played better than before. We fought in a lot of close games. He also noted that the team has gotten so young the past month that he feels more like he's playing on the rookies team than they're playing on his quote. You've got to learn how to do that. And I do think wins like tonight kind of show you what it's supposed to look like. So that was obviously the breakdown from Logan Webb. They also talked about Devers and Eldridge. They pitch around him. That's Eldridge talking about Devers. They throw around him or they intentionally walk him. He looks at me. He's pumping me up. I love that guy. I have his back. He's got my back. He gives me a lot of fuel. And this is the chronicle kind of working all these things together. The work from spring to much into the season was night and day. That was Christian Cost said of Eldridge's work at first.

5:23He's been phenomenal over there. That's just me saying it. He just constantly gets better each day. He's 21 years old. He's got a long time in this game. It's not going to surprise me when he wins a few gold gloves that is Christian Cost talking about Bryce Eldridge who had a phenomenal play on that double play. He's just been incredible. He's been awesome. The thing is, it's tough because of the possible lockout. But if we just ignore that for a second and let's just pretend and live in a world where it's not going to happen, if you do finish out the season, that's the thing about how long the baseball season is. They have the shortest off season. If you did end the season, and it's not even about being on a heater, because that would kind of, I don't even know if it would annoy me at this point because they're so far gone. It's not as if they would get close to the standing. So I'm to the point where they're so far out of it, I would at least like to see a run if possible. Obviously, just playing better ball.

6:25But I don't know if playing better ball and not winning games translates the same way as legitimately just winning baseball games. It might sound super simple, but just win baseball games. If you win baseball games, then that's going to get looked at obviously a little bit differently. Then, hey, they were, you know, and I'm not going to use another golf analogy even though I did get out and play some golf earlier today. I'm not going to use another golf analogy even though I could, but the bottom line is, even if you put yourself in a good situation, if you don't finish the job, you didn't finish the job. I had a couple birdie puts and part puts today, but I'm not going to get into it. So even though it's nice when they're at least competitive, I don't personally want the bar to get that low where it's just, oh, man, they were so competitive at the end of the season. Like I understand who they're running out there and a lot of triple A guys and it's the San Francisco River cats. I understand that, but at the same time, I'm not going to sit here and say, oh, yeah, the fact that they played well and competed, that's going to affect how they play in

7:322027. I do think if they win a couple series, like I said, six more games against the Dodgers. They got the Padres in there too. If you go up and you win a series or win two series against the the reigning World Series champion, yeah, that type of stuff matters, but being competitive with them, that does nothing. It's not for me because I have a fairly high standard when it comes to what can carry over. Now, I will say when or lose, sometimes you can build camaraderie in the struggle. And last season, Raffi Devers, he came over in the trade. It was William Thomas's first season. There was a lot going on, Bob Melvin, who knew him? What was the situation there? Obviously Matt Chapman had his connection, but there were a lot of moving parts, right?

8:32And Logan Web has had a couple different managers now. Next season, I do think that because the giants weren't making the playoffs, the Bob Melvin thing was always a bit tough because, hey, how much should we feel committed to this guy as fans, as players, whatever? Because we know that if you don't make the playoffs eventually sooner rather than later, they're going to be some question marks and there're going to be some decisions. Tony Baitello, we all know that Buster Posey has hitched his wagon. That was the other thing, right? Because moving off of Farhan, and then there was still Bob Melvin. Now Buster Posey is in charge. This is a different situation because Buster Posey hand picked Tony Baitello. And he has made basically a lot of the Bob Melvin. I know Farhan has obviously guys in the system, but we are starting to get far enough removed from the Bob Melvin and Farhan era that you can start to feel this team trying to create

9:38its own identity, create its own culture. I know culture, that's a word that gets used far too often in the workspace, right? I used to be in tech and tech, all that. Oh, we have a great culture. Well, what does that mean? I think hearing those things from Bryce Eldridge, whether it is a win or a loss, the camaraderie that is building, I think it was huge that the Giants got to play the Red Sox in Boston when they played him in Boston. I think it's huge that Tony Baitello is kind of getting the short end of the stick and a lot of these situations where he's getting thrown out of the game. I think all this stuff can start to build this idea of, hey, it's us against everyone else, nobody believes in us and nobody should believe in them right now. But going into next season, I do think that Buster Posey, even if he won't admit it on KNBR or wherever he does his hits, I do think Buster Posey knows that he messed this up with the pitching.

10:40So if you, and I get it, you still have Matt Chapman and you still have Willie Adamus. But if you do look at it and you say Willie Adamus had one of the worst seasons, if not the worst season of his career, and he wasn't healthy, Matt Chapman also didn't play great. Raffi Devers turned it around in a big, big way. Bryce Eldridge got a bunch of A, B's and he looks incredibly solid, right? You're seeing why all the hype has been there. Then you look at it and you say, all right, from a pitching standpoint, we can't screw this up. And the hope is that the hitting will start to round itself out. All these guys that are getting pulled up, you know, at the, I can't even remember, the Shay Witt comes guys like that. I have no clue if they're going to be on the team next season. And they're probably not going to be on the team next season. But you look at where the giants are at. Jung Hulee. I know he's been streaky and that's not me saying a lot of people have been saying it. You get really hot and really cold. But if you look at Jung Hulee and the infield, I guess, Casey Schmidt, who is going to be

11:42coming back, obviously, I think the infield makes you really, really excited. The outfield, I do think there are some question marks. I don't know if Casey Schmidt is going to be in the outfield or what, but the outfield, you know what Jung Hulee is. And outside of Jung Hulee, even though Drew Gilbert has played well, I don't know how much star power there is in the outfield right now. I said yesterday, Victor Barricotto probably had the, uh, wins the missed opportunity award. Cause I think that he showed a lot when he played, they need righty bats. He just couldn't stay on the field. So we'll see what happens with Barricotto next season. Obviously, Bo Davidson is going to get, get the call up at some point here. But yeah, the outfield to me is the, the biggest, bigger question mark than the infield. And that's not even close. And I get it with, and part of it is Adamis and Chapman, you know, they're going to play because they got to play. So those are the things that we're looking forward into 2027 and Buster.

12:45He knows that he can't do this again. He got roasted so bad in so many places and so many ways. He knows that he can't do this again. I would like to believe that. So if they handle the pitching and you see what happens with the outfield, yeah, you can feel good about going into 2027. But I think personally playing close games like they did against the Metz and then blowing it. I don't know how much that, oh man, remember when we blew that game because the, the, the point of it is half this bullpen, we don't even know who's going to be there. So oh man, we've been in these situations before. Okay, well, if the bullpen isn't any better, that's not going to fix it. That's anything. The fact that you were in the situation and blew it last season, right? It's a, it can be a bear. It's a team game is a team sport, but it can be individualized where, okay, well, I guess we could hit better to take the hands out of, take the game out of the bullpen's hands. So that, that's just not terribly realistic. So I do think winning games matters going into next season.

13:47I do think win or lose the camaraderie that they're building does matter. But, you know, just competing in games and losing them on its face. I don't necessarily think is enough, but everything else around that I do think can help in a big, big way. So I, I think they can gain some momentum, especially with this opportunity against the Dodgers who have been scuffling as of late with the six games coming up against them just to, to show that they can hang with them, you know, but hanging with them and losing is not the same as saying, oh yeah, oh yeah, if we figure some things out, we're tweaking some things around, gave Randy for 2027, because we'll be back in a big way. On the other side, a couple transactions that we talked about or that we mentioned, we will get into who got added to the roster, more locked on giants coming up. A big thank you to our friends at Amazon for this limited break, this back to school season spend less on your kids with Amazon.

14:47We all know how crazy the back to school shopping experience can be. It starts with a few items on the list, then suddenly you're shopping for supplies, clothes, lunch gear, tech and about 10 other things you didn't see coming. It adds up fast when you're buying supplies and you find yourself asking how a calculator became one of the more expensive items in the cart. I wasn't expecting math to start costing me money before school even began. It feels like there's a life lesson in there somewhere. I'm still trying to figure it out though. So remember, with Amazon's low back to school prices, just spend less on your kids because every dollar you don't spend on them is a dollar you haven't spent on them. Shop back to school at Amazon and spend less on your kids. Next segment with you and as I mentioned, the giants are just doing a lot right now. First and foremost, and trying to go in order here, the giants, they claim Brett Harris, David, giants claimed Infielder Brett Harris off waivers from the Red Sox.

15:51They love those infielder from the Red Sox. He's been option to AAA. Harris was designated for assignment on Tuesday. This is the last week to clear a spot for somebody else on the Red Sox. Obviously, Ken Winn was moved to the 60 day IL to open a 40 man spot wins placement on the 60 day IL. Makes it a whopping 14 guys on the list for San Francisco. The Red Sox acquired Harris in a minor trade with the A's in July. He'd recently been de-affayed by the A's. Harris appeared in just one game with Boston shortly after the trade. He started at first base and went over to with the hit by pitch. He spent the majority of the year at AAA. Harris compiled a strong 119WRC plus across 71 minor league games between the organizations. Harris has a 593 OPS and 74 games as a big leagueer. He spent his entire pro career with the A's until this season.

16:51The 28 year old has played every infiel position except shortstop during his time in the majors. Harris has played a handful of games at short in the minors. The main draw of Harris is defensive versatility. He could chip in around the diamond for a San Francisco squad that's missing a bunch of dudes. Finally, this is the Marcello Meyer thing as well. The club may prefer to give young options like Nate Furman and Vesade additional reps to close the year unless more injuries force them to bring up Harris. At this point, I think the real conversation here about Brett Harris is that he's 28 years old. He's 28 years old. He's played in what they say 74 that was from MLB trade rumors. 74 MLB games. He made it for him. He made it to the bigs. Not a name that we're probably going to talk about very often after this respectfully. That's the first name that I wanted to run by you. The second name is Joel Kunl.

17:53So Joel Kunl and this is from Susan Slusser. The giants have claimed right-handed Joel Kunl off waivers from the brewers and that was MLB.com that had that as well. Kunl, 31 years old, has been bouncing around the league for a while. He has pitched for the Reds, Astros, Rays, Athletics and Brewers over the past few years. He has a ground ball profile that hasn't yet translated into results as he has a 5.58 earned run average in 129 big league innings. So this was, they say, might be as simple as transferring Marcelo Marra to the 60-day injured list since he has already been shelved longer than that. Kunl is also out of options and will need an active roster spot when he reports to the team. Teams are seemingly continuing to bet on the stuff and the minor league numbers.

18:54He has four seamer and sinker each average around 95 miles per hour and he also futures a cutter, curveball slider and change up. He doesn't rack up strikeouts but usually gets opponents to pound the ball into the ground more than half the time dating back to the start of 2024. He has thrown 119 and 2-3, a AAA innings with a 3.08 ERA. He is now out of options which is why he has been shuttled around the league. This year he has spent time with the A's and Brewers tossing 35 and a third innings with a 4-8-4 ERA. If Milwaukee he spent the past month on a rehab assignment, posting a 1-6-4 ERA and 11-triple A innings. When he was done with that assignment, the Brewers designated him for assignment instead of putting him back on the roster. For the Giants, they are playing out the string on a law season. They can get a close-up look at Kunl in the final weeks if they so choose. If they like what they see, he is controllable for another four seasons after this one and

19:57won't qualify for arbitration until after 2027. A couple of names there that the Giants are making moves with. Again, older guys, but you never know when you can find some type of diamond in the rough and maybe the Giants are able to do that at some point. We'll see what ends up happening with them. The Giants might not even bother taking a look if they decide to go in different directions like trade rumors. They are just giving themselves options and seeing if they can find some diamonds in the rough. It's mining time. That's a term that I heard before. It's mining time for certain teams, not just in Major League Baseball and all sports. When you're in a certain position, whether rebuilding or whatever you want to call it, you're mining for gold. You're mining for a diamond in a rough. The Giants are mining right now. That's what they're doing. No more segment with you. Lorenzo Miola are the Giants finding a diamond in the rough in this middle infield.

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23:07Right? I mean, even though early on, there were some questions. Now he's doing things that we literally haven't seen since Barry Bond. One thing that really stands out is how the Giants got everyone pulling in the same direction with that decision. It wasn't just one great player or coach. It was a coordinated effort across an entire organization that made it successful. It took a little bit, but now it does look like it's successful. Great organizations win because operations matter. And that's why you should get Odo. Odo is one platform to manage, grow, and scale your business. Try for free today at odu.com slash lock down. Last segment with you and it feels like the Giants just have dare I say too many short stops, which is blasphemy, which is essentially a bad word. I would never say that because you can never have too many short stops. And now we have a short stop that we haven't talked about before.

24:08So he recently popped up on the Giants top 30 prospect list. I don't remember seeing him prior to this season. Maybe he was there and I somehow missed it. I think we went through all of these guys during the off season. So I kind of doubt it. So this is his name Lorenzo Meola. Say he's 5'11, 22 years old. Yeah, a little older. He was drafted in 2025 in the fourth round. Well, that's because he's a college guy. Meola was named Atlantic Sun Conference Tournament MVP as a sophomore after homering three times in four games and earned Atlantic Sun Conference defense. A player of the year accolades across as a junior in 2025. The cousin of former US national soccer team, Goli Tony Meola. He went in the fourth round, making him stepson's highest drafted position player since 2003, first rounder Brian Johnson. He took over as shortstop for an injured Maui O'Huna at single A San Jose and helped with

25:13a California league title. So that's why we hadn't heard about him. He had kind of been behind Maui O'Huna who we have talked about, of course, before. And he's showing that he can do some things with solid speed and quick feet. Meola covers a lot of ground at shortstop, his smooth action, soft hands and strong arm help make him a plus defender at short factor in some sneaky power and some joint officials think he has J.J. Hardy upside. Meola hits the ball surprisingly hard for a five foot 117 to pounder and he can drive the ball out of the park to all fields, giving him the potential for 15 to 20 homeers per season. He does get overly aggressive and pull happy. However, resulting in strikeouts rolled over ground balls. He's most effective when he focuses on driving balls from gap to gap. So just another guy to keep an eye on getting an opportunity, 22 years old with the San Jose Giants in single A obviously.

26:13So we'll keep an eye on him. But I think what's a little bit scary for somebody like Meola and I could even say Maui O'Huna is because these guys are just so many and then you have John Yell Hernandez to just bring in more and more short stops and infielders which is good for us and good for the organization. But a lot of these guys are going to start, you know, depending on what happens next season, you could see these guys start to get moved. So I hate to say, here's a Lorenzo Meola profile. He's probably going to get traded. I'm not necessarily saying that, but there's probably a world where some of these guys are going to get moved. And it ain't going to be the guys that are in the top 100. At least not right now. The only way that would happen and with Tarek's scoobal now with the Smurfs, but the only way that would happen is if the Giants next season were just absolutely going for it. And I still don't even know if it would be those two guys before, hey, the deepest will go is Johnny level or something like that.

27:15So I'm not saying that any of these guys are going to get moved, but at some point, if the Giants are competitive, some of them will be moved because they'll have to make moves that Giants will to sell all the way in. But good on Lorenzo Meola for getting an opportunity and taking advantage of it. That's all you can do. That's all you're supposed to do. And hopefully he's the guy. You know, there's only so many positions, but that's the thing about short stops and middle infielders. Yeah, I know a couple of them are a bit undersized. So they're probably not going to play first base, but they can play all around the field. So if they all hit, maybe they won't get moved because you'll just sprinkle them all around the field. We'll see what happens there. Thank you for listening to Lockdown Giants. Thank you for watching Lockdown Giants. Be sure to follow me on social media at the underscores styles files styles with an eye for those of you on video. We send you to the first ever 24 seven National Lockdown podcast network YouTube channel. On audio, make sure you make your second listen, lock on MLB. We will talk to you tomorrow. Until then, please.

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