LAS VEGAS — There is probably one arm in the Giants’ organization with the trust and the track record to handle the ninth inning. Buster Posey doesn’t want him closing games.
“I don’t think it’s out of the question,” the Giants’ top baseball official said Tuesday at MLB’s general managers meetings, “but … my preference would be not to close right out the gate.”
If not Randy Rodriguez, the flame-throwing 2025 All-Star who missed this past season rehabbing from elbow surgery, then who could wind up closing games for the Giants?
“In a perfect world,” Posey said, their ninth-inning man will come from outside the organization.
That would allow the Giants to ease Rodriguez into his first season back from Tommy John surgery. He posted a 1.78 ERA in 50 appearances in 2025, including 15 games he finished, but was shut down in August and had his ulnar collateral ligament surgically repaired in September.
Posey said he expects Rodriguez to be ready for Opening Day, even if it’s in a reduced role. The Giants are scheduled to open their season about 18 months after Rodriguez’s operation, but the looming lockout could give him even more time to ramp up.
Rodriguez took a major step in his recovery last month, appearing in three Arizona Fall League games in his first time facing batters in game action since before the surgery. His velocity touched 98 mph, but the Giants shut him down after experiencing some elbow pain.
Posey said the team was “just being careful … just being cautious.”
Still, he wasn’t comfortable penciling in Rodriguez as their Opening Day closer just yet.
“Really [to] be able to monitor his workload the best we can as he continues to get back to where he was before the injury,” Posey said. “But things can change.”
Camilo Doval, who saved 107 games for the Giants from 2021 until he was traded to the Yankees in 2025, is back in the organization after being designated for assignment by the Pirates in September, but he is projected to make $6.6 million in salary arbitration.
Posey said the Giants were “discussing it still” whether to tender him a contract.
Posey’s desire to bring in an external candidate — or two — to take down the highest-leverage innings in San Francisco’s bullpen may be a hard square to circle with his stated reticence to part with the draft pick compensation. Arguably the top two relief options on the free agent market, David Bednar and Adrian Morejon, both received qualifying offers.
Further down the big board of available arms, though, there are still plenty of free agents with experience in the ninth inning. Raisel Iglesias (287 career saves), Jordan Romano (128), Pete Fairbanks (109), Emilio Pagan (90), Gregory Soto (72), Jose Alvarado (53) and Evan Phillips (47) are all known commodities and closed games within the past year or two.
The Giants went most of last season under manager Tony Vitello with a closer-by-committee approach. Their 5.74 ERA in the ninth inning ranked 28th of 30 teams.
“I do think that some of these arms that were kind of thrust into situations that they were probably not quite ready for,” Posey said, “hopefully we can push them down a little bit and just lengthen the ‘pen and be in a better place to use some of those guys that were throwing later innings.
“Maybe now they’re pitching the fifth, sixth, seventh innings instead of seventh, eighth and ninth.”
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: nypost.com
