Which San Francisco Giants Can Step up to Replace Injured Veteran Outfielder?

The San Francisco Giants will be without one of their veteran outfielders for a substantial amount of time. Who steps up in his place?

Mar 1, 2025; Phoenix, Arizona, USA; San Francisco Giants outfielder Luis Matos (29) bats against the Los Angeles Dodgers during the third inning at Camelback Ranch-Glendale. | Joe Camporeale-Imagn Images

The San Francisco Giants made it through much of spring training without any major injuries popping up, but recently that all changed.

Outfielder and designated hitter Jerar Encarnación suffered a broken wrist after being hit by a pitch during Friday's spring training game.

This leaves the Giants in a tough position, as they now have to shift their lineup around a bit to accommodate a missing piece.

While Encarnación did only play in 35 games last season, he likely would have seen a solid bump to his playing time this year given his strong spring training performance.

However, now the lineup will have to shift. There are a few options when it comes down to it regarding how to fix this gap, the first of which is likely the most obvious.

If San Francisco wants to remain as close to the true lineup as possible, they will run Heliot Ramos in left field, Jung Hoo Lee in center field, Wilmer Flores at designated hitter and Mike Yastrzemski in right field.

When it comes to trying to retain some resemblance of consistency, this would likely be their first choice as all the players are typically playing in most cases anyway.

Their other option instead would be utilizing one of their younger players in one of the outfield spots and shifting someone else into the designated hitter role, with Flores being the odd man out. Players like Grant McCray and Luis Matos are on the 40-man roster and could end up being viable options to play in the outfield while Encarnación recovers from his setback.

Out of the two, Matos has had the better production this spring, putting up .317/.349/.450 slash lines, 11 RBI, seven runs, a .799 OPS, two home runs, and five strikeouts to three walks.

McCray has struggled a little bit comparatively, with .239/.375/.391 slash lines, four RBI, 10 runs, a .766 OPS, one home run, and 18 strikeouts to nine walks.

Ultimately it will be up to the team to decide which option is better for them, or if they just want to rotate things to start the year based on the pitcher and the scenario they are dealing with. Broken wrists take quite a while to recover from typically, especially for an MLB-caliber hitter, so they may have time to try a few different options and see which one works best long-term.

It will be a good opportunity for other players to get playing time, but also an unfortunate scenario overall for Encarnación and the team.