Former San Francisco Giants Legend Rips Their Decision to Demote Star Prospect

The San Francisco Giants have dealt with tons of injuries to their roster during the early portion of the season.

Reigning Cy Young winner Blake Snell is currently on the injured list along with star rookie Jung Hoo Lee who will miss the rest of the year after undergoing shoulder surgery.

Michael Conforto, Jorge Soler, Nick Ahmed, Keaton Winn, Marco Luciano, and Lamont Wade Jr. are all either on the IL, or have spent time there at one point.

Despite battling these issues, the Giants are still in the playoff mix, sitting one game out of the final Wild Card spot entering Thursday.

They also got some good news when Austin Slater was cleared to return from his concussion that had kept him out for an extended period of time. San Francisco activated him and was ready to place him back into the outfield, an area that has been hit hard by injuries.

It seemed like everyone was going to be happy about that development.

That is until it was announced the Giants were demoting star prospect Luis Matos to make room for Slater on their active roster.

There was a lot of negative reactions from fans regarding this news, and one of the franchise's former great players also shared some negative feelings.

"Not a big fan of that decision. I love Matos. He's going to be one of the future outfielders in this organization. Somebody gave me an opportunity, they stuck with me. I’m a big believer in that. You have to stick with the young guys and deal with the growing pains," Will Clark said in an interview on KNBR's "The Murph & Markus Morning Show."

Clark was a six-time All-Star, getting selected five times as a member of San Francisco. He made his debut in 1986 at 22 and finished Top 5 in NL Rookie of the Year voting.

During his eight seasons with the Giants, he slashed .299/.373/.499 with 176 homers and over 700 RBI, earning two Silver Slugger and a Gold Glove award.

Interestingly enough, Matos is now 22 years old just like when Clark made his debut.

After being signed as an international free agent in 2018, Matos became considered one of their top prospects starting in 2020 where he ranked inside their Top 10 every year through 2023 when he got his first promotion to The Show.

The outfielder had an alright showing, slashing .250/.319/.342 with two homers, 16 extra-base hits, and 14 RBI across 76 games, but upon earning NL Player of the Week at one point this year, it looked like he was on his way to sticking in the bigs.

That ultimately wasn't the case, however, as his recent struggles made him expendable in San Francisco's minds.

Matos will almost certainly be back in the MLB some time this season, but this decision was clearly not a popular one as they demoted him in order to give Slater another opportunity.