Giants Promote Bo Davidson, Activate Marcelo Mayer

The Giants announced they’ve selected outfield prospect Bo Davidson onto the MLB roster and activated Marcelo Mayer from the 10-day injured list. San Francisco shut down Jung Hoo Lee with a groin contusion and placed rookie first baseman Bryce Eldridge on the seven-day concussion list. Eldridge’s placement is retroactive to September 18, so he could theoretically return for the final series of the season. San Francisco also needed a spot on the 40-man roster for Davidson. They opened that by designating lefty reliever Philip Abner for assignment. Justice delos Santos of The Mercury News first reported that Davidson was likely to be added to the roster today. Davidson, 24, would have been eligible for the Rule 5 draft in the upcoming offseason. The Giants will add him a few weeks ahead of schedule to give him a chance to face big league pitching before the winter. The Rule 5 draft might be canceled by the lockout, as it was in the 2021-22 offseason, but that’s not guaranteed. Unless there’s some sort of preemptive cancellation, teams will have to make their 40-man decisions in November like usual. It’s a pretty remarkable journey for Davidson, as he was signed as an undrafted free agent in 2023. It’s rare for such players to become legitimate prospects or make it to the big leagues but Davidson has beaten the odds. His numbers in the minors are strong in all areas. He hits home runs, steals bases, draws walks and doesn’t strike out too much. He is capable of playing all three outfield spots and some evaluators consider him capable of sticking in center field. He started this year in Double-A but was promoted to Triple-A in July. Between those two levels, he has made 549 trips to the plate. He has drawn a walk in 9.7% of those while striking out 21.5% of the time. He has 29 home runs and a .290/.361/.527 line. That leads to a 129 wRC+, indicating he has been 29% better than average offensively. The whole package is obviously enticing. Baseball America lists Davidson as the #80 prospect in the league, though most other major outlets don’t have him as a Top 100 guy at the moment. A few months ago, FanGraphs ranked him 10th in the Giants’ system, voicing concerns about holes in his swing and the likelihood of him getting pushed to a corner at some point. The center field job in San Francisco is currently open. The club signed Harrison Bader to a two-year deal in the offseason, hoping he would solidify that spot. That plan has not worked out. Bader struggled through 30 games this year around trips to the injured list. While on the IL in July, he reportedly got into a scooter accident which may have done long-term damage to his foot. The club is clearly not thrilled by that incident, as they said they would be suspending payment to Bader. The Giants are playing out the string on a lost season. As mentioned, Davidson was going to need a 40-man spot anyway, so they might as well call him up now and work him into the mix. Drew Gilbert, Jonah Cox and Grant McCray have all been getting some center field playing time in recent weeks. McCray has really poor offensive numbers this season. Cox is hitting well but is getting help from a .464 batting average on balls in play and is working around a 38.2% strikeout rate. Gilbert has good defensive grades and his offense is just barely below league average. Davidson won’t exhaust his rookie eligibility in the next few days. That means he could be eligible for the Prospect Promotion Incentive next year, in theory. However, in order to be PPI eligible, a player needs to be on two out of the three Top 100 lists between Baseball America, ESPN and MLB Pipeline. Currently, Davidson is only on the BA list, so he would need to crack one of the other two by Opening Day next year to put PPI on the table. Mayer will also get his first opportunity to impress the organization. The former top prospect was on the injured list when San Francisco acquired him in a surprise deadline deal that sent lefty reliever Erik Miller to Boston. The Chula Vista native was down with a stress reaction in his left forearm at the time. He hoped to return in August but was further delayed by a bone bruise in his right foot. The fourth overall pick in 2021, Mayer is a career .223/.278/.346 hitter across 364 MLB plate appearances. Boston’s front office seemed to sour on him quickly, but he’s still just 23 and brings plenty of pedigree back to the west coast. The Giants aren’t going to make any long-term decisions based on his play over the final six games, but he’ll go into Spring Training with a chance to compete for the second base job. While one player comes off the injured list, another two regulars land on the shelf. This incredibly brings the Giants to 10 position players among 23 total players on the MLB injured list. They’ll all need to come off the IL at the beginning of the offseason, meaning almost a third of the players on their 40-man roster/60-day injured list will hit waivers in early November. As delos Santos observers, Lee’s injury means that no one from San Francisco’s Opening Day lineup is still on their active roster. Patrick Bailey, Luis Arraez and Heliot Ramos were traded. Lee, Casey Schmitt, Matt Chapman, Willy Adames, Harrison Bader, Rafael Devers and Logan Webb are all injured. Abner was claimed off waivers from Arizona last month. The soft-tossing southpaw has given up seven runs on as many hits (including four homers) across 4 2/3 frames in a Giants uniform. He carries a 6.75 ERA across 22 2/3 career innings. A former 6th-rounder out of the University of Florida, Abner will go back on waivers this week.