The Giants passed first baseman Trenton Brooks and lefty Raymond Burgos through waivers unclaimed, Shayna Rubin of the San Francisco Chronicle tweets. Both were designated for assignment over the weekend, and both have now been assigned outright to Triple-A Sacramento.
Brooks, acquired last August in the trade sending Sean Newcomb across the bay to Oakland, made his MLB debut as a 28-year-old rookie this season. He went 3-for-25 (all singles), punched out six times and drew four walks.
That debut hardly turned many heads, but Brooks has clobbered Triple-A pitching this season and walked more often than he’s struck out in the process. Through 177 plate appearances, he’s hitting .308/.426/.462 with a 17.5% walk rate against a 15.3% strikeout rate. He’s homered four times and swiped six bases. This is Brooks’ fourth season of action at the Triple-A level, and he’s a career .277/.377/.471 hitter in 1365 trips to the plate there. That solid track record wasn’t enough to convince another club to claim him, so he’ll remain with the River Cats and give the Giants a depth option in the event that they need a left-handed bat or some help at first base and/or in the outfield corners.
Burgos, 25, also made his big league debut with the Giants recently. It lasted just one inning, and Burgos yielded a run on three hits and a walk with one punchout in that brief debut showing. The former Cleveland farmhand signed a minor league deal with San Francisco two offseasons ago and did so again earlier this year after very briefly pitching in Mexico. While he had lackluster results in Triple-A last year, Burgos has been excellent in Sacramento this time around. In 22 innings, Burgos boasts a 1.64 earned run average with a 27.4% strikeout rate against a comically low 2.4% walk rate.
As with Brooks, Burgos will remain in the organization as a depth option in Sacramento. Taylor Rogers and Erik Miller are the only healthy left-handers on the Giants’ 40-man roster at the moment, so Burgos could quickly find himself back in the mix for a big league role if anything happens to either southpaw.
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