There is a difference between a slump and a roster problem. Daniel Susac has spent the past couple of months making the Giants deal with both at once, and that is what makes his situation so awkward for a club that wanted more offense from the catcher position in the first place.
Susac’s major league start looked encouraging enough. He opened his career with 11 hits in 23 at-bats, a burst that suggested the Giants might have found a quick answer behind the plate. Since then, though, the production has fallen off sharply. Over his last 106 plate appearances, he has posted a.487 OPS, with a.250/.297/.319 line, zero home runs, 15 RBI, six runs and a 73 wRC+.
Why the Giants do not really have options
The biggest reason Susac’s struggles matter is that the Giants cannot simply move on. He is still bound to Rule 5 draft rules, which limits their flexibility even as the offense has gone quiet. That matters because the catcher spot was supposed to be an area where the Giants could get more from the bat, not less.
Patrick Bailey had been the Giants’ solution at catcher for the past couple of seasons, but the organization clearly wanted another path to more production. Susac was part of that answer in the offseason, when the Giants acquired him in a trade with the Minnesota Twins. Instead, they have been left with a player whose hot start now feels more like the exception than the rule.
The numbers point to a real offensive decline
The recent line is not just a cold spell in the usual sense. Susac’s.069 ISO shows that there has been very little impact in the contact he has made, and the plate discipline numbers help explain why the profile has flattened out. He has a 4.6 percent walk rate and a 23.1 percent strikeout rate, which is not the combination a team wants from a catcher it hoped could provide a little extra offense.
The two stints on the injured list during the slump add another layer to the story, because they interrupt any attempt to build rhythm. But even allowing for that, the larger picture is still clear: the production has been below average, the impact has been limited, and the Giants have been waiting for the version of Susac they saw at the start rather than the one they have had for most of the last couple of months.
What it means next
That is the real problem for the Giants. If Susac were simply underperforming in an ordinary roster spot, the answer would be easy enough. Because of the Rule 5 draft rules, it is not. So the Giants are left hoping the bat rebounds before the season forces a harder conversation about how much offense they can afford to lose at catcher.
For now, Susac’s line tells the story: a promising start, a long slide, and a roster constraint that makes the whole thing much harder to solve. The Giants wanted a better answer behind the plate. Right now, they mostly have a question.
