SF Giants release three players, including former Rockies top prospect

The SF Giants released three players from the organization last week, including former Colorado Rockies corner bat Colton Welker. The Giants released Welker and right-handed pitcher Phoenix Sanders from their Triple-A affiliate's roster in Sacramento on Friday. They also released catcher Robert Emery from the organization's Double-A roster in Richmond on Thursday.

The Giants claimed Welker off waivers from the Rockies last summer and immediately placed him on the 60-day injured list after he underwent season-ending shoulder surgery before he played a game in the organization. Welker has struggled to stay healthy throughout his career but has been productive throughout the minors.

Across 416 minor league games, Welker has slashed .303/.367/.454 with 42 homers, 250 runs batted in, 156 walks, and 315 strikeouts. He received a cup of coffee with the Rockies in September 2021 and was 7-for-37 with a double, three walks, and 11 strikeouts.

Welker, 25, wasn’t fairing well against Pacific Coast League pitching upon his release. In 170 plate appearances with Triple-A Sacramento, he racked up just a .662 OPS without any homers. Primarily a third baseman during his career, the Giants utilized him more as a designated hitter and first baseman.

San Francisco signed Sanders on May 24 to provide some right-handed relief depth within the organization, but the former University of South Florida product ran into massive issues when it came to yielding homers in the hitter-friendly PCL. In 14 ⅓ innings of work, he allowed 14 earned runs, five homers, and seven walks while striking out 12 –– the latter statistic is a decent sized drop off of his minor league average of 10.7 K/9.

Sanders, 28, was a 10th-round selection by the Tampa Bay Rays in the 2017 MLB Draft and displayed flashes of becoming a viable big-league bullpen piece. The Rays called him up in April 2022 and the righty appeared in eight games and fired 14 ⅓ innings with three walks allowed and 12 strikeouts. He allowed five earned runs. After being designated for assignment by Tampa Bay in August, the Baltimore Orioles claimed him and kept him in the organization until he was released on May 19.

Emery was originally signed by the Giants as an undrafted free agent on June 24, 2020 from the University of San Francisco. The Bay Area native was mostly a backup catcher for the organization and slashed .252/.362/.382 in 469 plate appearances across three minor league seasons. Between Triple-A and Double-A, Emery notched a .565 OPS in 31 games.

On Sunday, the Seattle Mariners announced they signed Emery to a minor league deal and the 26-year-old was assigned to the club’s Arizona Complex League.

Published Jul 16, 2023

STEVEN RISSOTTO

Steven Rissotto (he/him) is an award-winning journalist who currently covers the San Francisco Giants for SFBay.ca and Giants Baseball Insider. At 19-years-old in 2021, he joined SF Bay Media as the Giants beat writer, covering games a few times a week during the Giants’ record-setting 107-win season. Along with his game story coverage he is also the host of RizzoCast, a baseball podcast he founded in 2020 that features interviews with professional and amateur baseball players, coaches, media, fans, and everyone else around the game. Past guests have included Tyler Glasnow, Bob Kendrick, Shawn Estes, Bill Laskey, Renel Brooks Moon, Dave Dravecky, Ned Colletti, Denard Span, Ron Wotus, Joe Maddon, J.T. Snow and more. He is also a co-host with Tylor Hall on the Shutdown Inning Podcast, a show focused on all the latest happenings around the baseball world. Both podcasts are available on YouTube and everywhere podcasts are found. Currently, he is a student at San Francisco State University where he is majoring in Journalism with an emphasis in print/online and minoring in education. At SF State, he is the managing editor for Golden Gate Xpress, the student-run newspaper. He was formerly a member of the newspaper at Skyline College, where he served as editor-in-chief and news editor while also writing sports and features. He was formerly a student-journalist at Archbishop Riordan High School in San Francisco, where he pitched for the baseball team and covered some of the biggest stories in campus history. This includes a new multi-sports facility on campus, the breaking news coverage of Riordan’s coed announcement and the COVID-19 pandemic. Steven is well-respected by his peers and has been honored numerous times by Student Newspapers Online, JEA, ACP, and the California Publishing Association. In 2021, he finished second in the country for Reporter of the Year for ACP among the two-year college schools.

Home/San Francisco Giants News