Splash Considerations Ep. 19: How Bold Can You Go?

In Episode 19 of Splash Considerations, Justice breaks down the Giants' decision to remove Hector Borg as the team's third-base coach, as well as the surprising decision to promote outfielder Jonah Cox straight from Double-A to San Francisco. 

Additional Reading

SF Giants’ farm director explains Jonah Cox’s ascent to big-league promotion

SF Giants re-assign Borg, name Wotus as interim third base coach 

SF Giants’ Adames’ latest error highlights his early defensive struggles

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:27

Welcome to another episode of Splash Considerations. My name is Justice Delosantos, San Francisco Giants B reporter for the Bay Area News Group, San Jose Mercury News, East Bay Times, whatever you want to call us, as long as you read, as long as you subscribe. And speaking of subscribe, subscribe to the YouTube channel. Follow us on Apple, follow us on Spotify. A lot of things in this world cost a lot of money, but subscribing and following, those things remain free 99 in just a moment of your time. And it's June 1st. We are finally in what will be the summer months. I know that's summer is still 20 days away, but the kids are getting out of school soon. The weather's gonna be heating up. It's gonna be some really good weather out of the ballpark whenever you decide to go, day game or night game. But it is officially the first month of what we can call summer. And that also means we are far beyond the point of being able to call anything really a small sample size, especially when it comes to the 2026 Giants, who, as I'm sitting here recording right now, and for those of you who are watching this video, as you can tell by the decor behind me, I am not in my room. I am currently uh in Milwaukee where the Giants are gonna have a four-game set against the Milwaukee Brewers. That's gonna be followed by three more games against the Chicago Cubs in this little Midwest swing. Probably their easiest road trip from a quantity to distance perspective. There's been some weird ones this year. There was the Baltimore, Cincinnati, DC one that was followed by a little easier, but it was still LA, Arizona, Sacramento. So not as difficult on the travel this time around. I'm just gonna be taking the train down from Milwaukee to Chicago. But anyhow, as I mentioned, it's the first of the month. Shout out to Bone Thugs in Harmony. It's the first of the month. So this is a really good opportunity to really dive into and analyze where the Giants kind of stand just to provide a little bit of an overview before uh getting into everything that's happened over the course of the past week, because a lot has happened over the course of the past week. But the Giants are currently 23 and 36. Uh, they avoided falling to last place in the National League yesterday by defeating the Rockies with a blowout win. Uh, if they had lost the Rockies yesterday, they would have fallen to having the worst record in the National League. They were swept by the Arizona Diamondbacks earlier in the week on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. It's the first time in franchise history that they have started a season against the Diamondbacks 0-6. And so we've talked a lot about a lot of you know historical lows, you know, making the wrong type of history with this current Giants team. And that's just kind of another one of those instances. They dropped the first two or three, uh, the they dropped the first two rather to the Rockies before, as I mentioned, winning the third game. Uh the Friday game was just a true gut punch, heartbreak, whatever you want to call it. They had a three-run lead uh going into the bottom of the ninth, uh, Caleb Killian on the mound. He allows the game tying three-run homer to Hunter Goodman, and then that's followed by uh the game-winning walk-off homer or two-run homer by Ezekiel Tovar. And then Saturday's game was just, it was an eight-three loss, but they were trailing by eight runs for a good portion of that game. So the the final score kind of makes it seem a little more competitive than it actually was, but what it was was a true uh blowout loss. And then as I mentioned, Sunday, they were able to, you know, put up their best offensive performance of the season. I think it's let me pull up the number here, 19-6. Uh Jung Hu-Lee had five hits. We'll get to Jung Hu Lee's return in a second. Willia Damas had a grand slam, Bryce Eldridge finally didn't get robbed by the dimensions of a ballpark, hit his second homer of the season with a 453-foot homer. Uh, if we have time in this episode, I do want to dive into a little bit of what Bryce has been doing at the plate. Maybe we save that uh for another episode when the sample size is a little bigger. But as I mentioned, this Giants team is currently 23 and 36 on this season. And there have only been five other instances in franchise history where a Giants team has finished or started a season rather with a record of uh 23 and 36, or 23 or fewer wins through their first 39 games. That would be 1991, 1985, 1984, 1976, and 1972. So it has been quite a while since a Giants team has gotten off to this bad of a start. Not even those 2018-2017 teams got off to this bad of starts. And again, to provide additional context as to where those teams ended up finishing their season, uh, it's not good. The outlook isn't great, and this is nothing new. This is nothing you don't already know. But that 1991 team uh finished with a record of 75 and 87. The 1985 team, first team in franchise history, only team in franchise history to lose 100 games. The 84 team, they go 66 and 96, the 76 team, they go 74 and 88, and the 72 team goes 69 and 86. As far as this current Giants team, they're currently on pace to go 63 and 99. And this is gonna be something that, you know, it's gonna be a discussion point over the course of this season, depending on how, especially depending on how this month of June goes, because in the month of May, they finished, I think it's 10 and 18, which, you know, you compound that with the fact that, you know, that March, April, they were 13 and 18. I think it's definitely fair that this is gonna be a discussion point over the summer. Just are the Giants still gonna be on pace for 98, 99, 100 losses? Because as I mentioned, there has only been one team in franchise history to lose 100 games. And a point that I think has been mentioned on this podcast, been written about, is when you look at this team on paper, and again, this team might look very differently on paper a month from now, or two months from now, rather, when the uh August 3rd trade deadline rolls around. But I think that's kind of been a common thought theme, if you want to call it that, that this team is just too talented on paper to lose that many games. And especially when you compare it to some of the rosters, you know, in 2017, in 2018, in 1985, you know, there's Logan Webb, he's a two-time all-star, Robbie Ray is a two-time all-star. You go, Rafi Devers, three-time all-star. Like you go up and down the roster. And for as bad as it is getting, I think that there's this kind of thought that, you know, it maybe like it can't get that bad, but you know, that's just kind of where we're at. That is just the fact of the matter of how bad that this Giants team has been through the first two months of the 2026 season. And again, I'm not saying that they can't turn it around, I'm not saying that they can't go ahead and have just this insane month of June, and maybe it not necessarily propels them back into attention, but at least gets them back into respectability. Uh, but that's just the fact of the matter. So, as I mentioned, there's been a lot to talk about over the course of this past week. And the place that I want to start is the biggest piece of news over the course uh of the last seven days. It's obviously the biggest piece of news over the course of the last seven days. And that was the Giants' decision to reassign Hectorborg to a different role in the organization. He will no longer be this team's third base coach despite not even having the job for 60 games. He only had it for about a third of the season. Uh for the time being, uh, Ron Wotis, who has just been a longtime Giants coach. Well, if you're listening to this podcast, you know who Ron Wotis is. But he had been a special assistant for, I believe it was the past five years, 2022 uh through 26. He had been in the dugout during home games this season. He had actually been the third base coach for the first four games of the Giants' recent homestand against the Chicago White Sox and the Arizona Diamondbacks because uh Hector Borg's grandmother uh tragically passed away uh about a week ago. So Borg went back to the Dominican Republic for the funeral before returning for the final two games of the homestand. And the Giants announced this on Friday. Uh, how long it's gonna take them to announce a permanent uh third base coach for the remainder of the season, whether that actually just remains Wotus. Uh time will tell. I'm actually very curious to ask Vitello uh early today, rather, or maybe sometime during this road trip, you know, how what that timeline might look like. But for the time being, a longtime Giants coach who retired and then is back out of retirement, at least for the time being, uh, is going to be the third base coach. And this shouldn't come as any much of a surprise that this decision happened just because I don't want to use social media as a barometer for evaluation. I I I am online, I do see a lot of what is posted, I am not oblivious to what is posted, but I think a good point, or a point rather, I'll just call it a point. I don't know if it's good necessarily, but I think a point that was made is that uh if the general fan base can all pretty much name who the third base, the new third base coach is, not even uh basically a third into the season, that's probably not great. And that's kind of how it was uh with Hector Borg. And the Giants are actually tied right now with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, of Orange County, of California, for the worst base running team uh by fan grafts base running metric at negative 4.9. They've been one of the worst base running teams in all of baseball. Now, some of that has to do with the fact that this team does not steal because that is baked into the formula right now. But that base running metric also accounts for things like going from first to third, going from second to home, things of that nature. And uh it doesn't take it doesn't really, you don't I don't think you really need that base running metric to know that the Giants haven't been one of the best base running teams in all of baseball. And this is not to say that that's entirely on board because again, the Giants have 15 steals. I don't know how many players have more than that, but they're last in all of baseball. Actually, let's let's look this up. We can look this up on the spot. My computer is right next to me. They have 15 steals. There are five players in all of baseball. Oh, let's actually, that's the qualified stat. Let's let's eliminate there. Yeah, there are five players in all of baseball who have at least 15 steals by themselves. So again, that's kind of baked into the calculus here, but again, it's it's more than just the steals. And there have been a lot of instances of Borg making objectively what has been the wrong decision when it's been sending a runner. And I wrote down a couple of those instances here. There was uh when he sent Jung Hoo home against the Dodgers back during that first Dodger series at Oracle, uh, when Jung Hu actually started the at-bat on first, and then Elliott Ramos hits a sharp single up the middle, and uh Borg makes a super aggressive wave home. Uh Lee gets uh ends up getting thrown out at the plate, uh, kind of gets banged up in the process, and that's really what kick-started the whole Dalton rushing saga of the Giants Dodgers rivalry, and that's kind of all it was. It was a saga that didn't bleed into the recent series that they had in LA. Uh, but there was another instance during a homestand against the Phillies when he challenged Adolis Garcia's arm, and Adoles Garcia has one of the best arms in baseball, and he tried to send William Adamas on, I think what was a single. Adamas gets thrown out of the plate. Uh, there was the double header against the Phillies later that month where there was the play where it's the top of the tenth, threw Gilbert's on second, Elliott Ramos is at the plate, Ramos hits a very sharp grounder up the middle, Bryson Stott dives and just tries to corral it, and it hits off his glove and rolls into shallow center field. And Gilbert is moving. Like he is moving. And if Borg waves him in, Gilbert scores easily. The Giants take a one-run lead going into the bottom of the tenth inning at the minimum. But Borg holds him up. Gilbert slams on the brakes, recheats back to first. And I think I cannot verify the validity of this. I'm not a lip reader, but there was a clip that did circulate on social media to where people speculate that Ramos said, why didn't he send him? Uh, and the Giants don't end up scoring uh in the top of the tenth inning, and then they get end up getting walked off. There was during that same road trip, that's when he uh waived Arrias on what should have just been a double uh against Tampa. He tries to wave him, tries to extend it into a triple. Arias gets thrown out. And the final straw was on Wednesday against the Diamondbacks. Giants had Willie Adamas at first base, Luis Arries is at the plate, there's one out. Aries hits a single in left field, and actually, no, Adamas was on second base, and Arries hits a it was a single into to left center field, but it wasn't one of those where you know Adamas got a bad read on a ball that was clearly gonna be a hit. Uh it was very much one of those, like you don't know if the center fielder was gonna catch it. It was Jorge Barossa in center field, which side note, I want to make a very quick aside. Jorge Barossa is like the same height and weight as me. So that makes me very happy to see a fellow short king out in baseball. But uh Barossa, all-out effort dives, and he just barely misses the ball. And so Adamas is kind of in this middle ground. Once he sees the ball hit the ground, then he goes to third. And again, based on the situation, it's one out. The red hot Casey Schmidt is coming to play. Rafael Debris, who's also been hot, is right behind him. Uh the best decision, objectively speaking, would have just been to hold Adam's at third base. You got runners at the corners, one out for the hard of your lineup, two guys that have been doing a lot of damage at the plate. Uh Borg ends up sending him, Adamus gets thrown out, and then the real just kind of final gut punch of that inning is that Ryze gets picked off uh at second base, and Casey Schmidt doesn't even get to swing the bat. So it was the compilation, the compoundment, I don't even know if that's a word, but all of these instances of Borg making what was objectively uh the wrong decision. It just got too much. And again, a point that I made when I went on Anthony Garcia's show a couple days ago, shout out to Anthony. Uh, if you're listening, um Hector Borg is not the reason that the Giants are 13 games below uh 500. Like that is just the truth of the matter. Like these decisions have been bad. Yes, they have swung games, uh yes. And maybe if there was, I I don't know who's objectively been the best third base coach uh in ever. Like maybe if you had Tim Flannery or Ron Wotis out there from the start of the season to now, maybe the Giants have two more wins, which this is actually a very interesting discussion now that I think about it as to what is the value of a good third base coach. Um But despite the fact that the Giants would still be, you know, in the range of how bad that they have been, even if there was a different third base coach, the Giants needed to do something. The Giants needed to do something. They needed to make a coaching change given how bad these first two months have gone. And it's really unfortunate that, you know, this is the path that Borg ends up going on, or that this is the chapter of his how this chapter of his career kind of ends. And this isn't to say he can't be on another major league coaching staff uh in another role sometime uh down the stretch, but it is unfortunate that this is how this current chapter ends because he's been with this organization for a long time, both as a player in the minors, a coach, a manager. He's managed for the Dominican Republic during the Olympics. I think he's managed in Venezuela as well. He's been a part of this player development group since 2008. He has worked his way into this opportunity. And it is fair to wonder whether, you know, straight up throwing him into third base was the right move. You know, maybe getting him on the coaching staff was a smart decision, but maybe throwing him in right into third base wasn't maybe the best decision uh in retrospect. But it is again, it is unfortunate that someone as well remain renowned, as well liked in this organization, you know, has kind of become something of a scapegoat for the fan base. And again, I really want to emphasize that he's just he's in the times that I've interacted with her him, which has not been a lot, but it's you get a good gauge of a person in two months. He's been super personable. I can very much see why he's been in the organization uh this long. And you know, I wouldn't be surprised if he finds himself on another major league coaching roles sometime in the future, but uh maybe not as a third base coach, maybe as an infield coach or something of a skills coordinator. Something is some, you know, there are roles that you can make for someone that's as personable as him because I think it is good to have people like that on a coaching staff. But uh that's kind of the end of the Borg segment of you know this this episode of the podcast. We're gonna take a quick break and then get into the Giants' surprising decision to promote Jonah Cox. So I think it's fair to say that for most episodes over the course of a season, the Giants' decision to promote someone straight from AA to San Francisco would probably be the lead item. But as I mentioned, the decision to reassign Borg from third base coach to another role in the organization was by far the most uh relevant, important decision that this organization has made this week. But uh I'll be honest, the Giants' decision to promote outfielder Jonah Cox straight from AA to San Francisco was not on my bingo card for this year. If you gave me a list, if you gave me a list and you said justice, there is gonna be someone, there's going to be a Giants prospect who has never played in the majors this season that is going to make their debut at some point. Jonah Cox probably would not have been on my top 10. I probably would have said Jesus Rodriguez, who actually had his made his debut. I maybe would have said somebody like Bo Davidson, who's gotten off to a little bit of a Rocky start in a double-A Richmond. I would have said somebody like Parks Harbor, who is actually tearing it up since he returned from a hamstring ailment. But Jonah Cox would not have been the name that I would have given you. I don't think he would have been in the top 10. He might not have been in the in the top 15. And that's not any disrespect to you know Cox as a person, as a player, but you know, when you kind of see and evaluate who the other prospects in this organization are, again, was not on my bingo card. And it's actually the timing of this promotion is actually very interesting because uh I'm going to be writing a minor league review for the month of May. And one of the bullet points, or one of the sections of that story, was going to be dedicated to Cox because he had been just tearing it up with AA Richmond. And I'll get into the numbers in a second, but I'd actually interviewed uh senior director of player development, Kyle Haynes, friend of the program Kyle Haynes, about this, about him on Saturday. And on Sunday, uh, as I'm traveling to Milwaukee, you know, I had a lay a brief layover in Las Vegas. I actually just absolutely knocked out on the flight from Oakland to Las Vegas. And when I wake up in Vegas, I see that Jonah Cox has been promoted, and I'm getting slack messages, I'm getting texts, I'm just like, whoa, that was that was not what I was expecting. I think I actually texted um Trey Wilson, the uh marvelous PR director for Double A Richmond. I was like, well, I was not expecting that. But this decision to promote Cox does come in the wake of Harrison Bader landing on the injured list for the second time this season. Uh it's not he it was initially listed as plantar fasciitis, but Bader actually told Susan Slesser of the San Francisco Chronicle that it was a heel pad injury. Uh, how long that's gonna take to rehab from uh to be determined, but Bader, at least for the next eight or so days, however many days he has remaining uh on the injured list is going to be on the injured list. Uh Cox is the first person, at least that we know of, I'm pretty sure, uh, to skip double A or skip AAA rather entirely and go from Richmond to San Francisco since Miguel Gomez and Dan Slania uh did so in 2017. And for those of you who aren't familiar with Jonah Cox, I think it is important to note that he has never really been considered a top prospect in the organization. If you go to baseball America, he's not a top 30 prospect. If you go to MLD Pipeline, he's not a top 30 prospect. Uh he was part of the Ross Stripling trade in 2023. That sent Stripling from San Francisco to Oakland. He was the loan return. I think San Francisco had to dole out a little bit of cash as well. And for those of you who are wondering why he's never really been a top prospect in the organization, it's not for a lack of tools. And maybe that that is something we will get into in a second. The speed has always been phenomenal, the defense has always been phenomenal. Something that Haynes actually said was that if you suck this guy in center field and just had him play center field every day right now, uh he would be a gold glover. But the offense has never really leapt off the page as far as just you know the batted ball stuff. And what I mean by that is that in 2024, he spent time with Single A and Hayek. He had a 112 WRC plus. In 2025, he spent the whole season with Hayek Eugene, had a 103 WRC plus. And so what I mean by the bat the ball is that, you know, he did have 58 steals, he scored a lot of runs, but the majority of his value derived from his speed and his defense. And we don't have war metrics, but I can imagine, you know, if you had to break it down in the minors, uh, a lot of the value would come from the speed and the defense. But the numbers this season have just been absurd. What he's doing or what he had been doing with double-aid Richmond at the time of his promotion. His 400 batting average not only led the Eastern League, it led all of minor league baseball. His 453 on base percentage led the Eastern League. His 644 slugging percentage led the Eastern League. His 187 WRC Plus, you will be shocked to know, led the Eastern League. He had six homers, he had 27 steals, he added the plus defense. And again, like I mentioned, there's no war metric when it comes to minor league baseball, at least one that's publicly available. But he was probably the most valuable player in all of minor league baseball through these first two months of the season. And again, the reason that I was aiming to write about him for this minor league wrap-up is that it seemed like someone who was gonna find himself at AAA sometime soon. And I again I was not anticipating him making this leap straight from AA to the majors. Now, the lingering question that I want to address with Jonah Cox, and I do want to briefly mention he made his debut on Sunday, scored his first run as a pinch runner. I can't remember if it was a pinch run or defensive replacement, but scores his first run, and then he knocks, he gets his first hit. Now, it was against a position player, but the hits all count all the same, and he's got himself a major league batting average at a pristine 1,000. And he's probably gonna start at some point during this series against the Milwaukee Brewers. Uh, but that actually leads into some of the questions that I have with the decision to promote Cox from Richmond to San Francisco. And the big one is what's the plan? Is the plan for him to be an everyday starter? Is it to get a start every other day? Is he primarily gonna be coming off the bench? Uh how long is he gonna be here? And that kind of leads into, I know I just asked like four questions right there. So I guess the fifth part of this question, the second part of this question, is and it's gonna be a lingering question, is how does this affect his development long term? And the reason that I I asked that question, I think it's just a fair question in general, just when you skip someone over from AA to AAA entirely. And I think the answer to that question kind of bleeds into that first set of questions where I think if you're gonna promote somebody from AA straight to San Francisco, and again, I think it is worth mentioning that his profile is kind of different than someone of a Bryce Eldridge. Bryce Eldridge's value is going to derive pretty much exclusively from his bat, especially considering that he's pretty much just been a DH for right now. But there is a lot of value that you can derive from Cox without even getting to his bat. The defense, as I mentioned, is his best tool. The speed is there as well, and that's something that can really help out this Giants team that, again, like I mentioned, is you know, last in all of Major League Baseball in steals. So you don't necessarily need him to be a great hitter right away because there is value that he can provide just with the speed and his defense. But, you know, it is this lingering question of you know, was this the right decision for him as a player at this point in his development? You know, it's not easy to make the jump straight from A to AAA, and I am very aware of the fact that it has been done before. And there are actually other notable instances in Giants' history of guys being promoted straight from AA to San Francisco. This was done with Matt Duffy in 2014. This was done with Pablo Sandoval in 2008, and you can look at other examples throughout Major League Baseball. I think Juan Soda was a guy, if I remember correctly, that skipped AA at Christian Yelich as well. Uh, and again, those cases, all these cases you need to kind of evaluate at the individual level instead of painting them with a broad brush. But that is kind of the lingering question that I have with him going forward is is this the right thing for his development in the long term? And just what does this look like with him being up at the major league level? And I think another point to address as well is that he would have been rule five, or he was going to be rule five draft eligible after this season. So the Giants were gonna have to add him to the 40-man roster at some point. Now, again, did they necessarily have to just add him to the major league roster? No, but they were gonna have to add him to the uh 40-man roster uh if they wanted to keep him and protect him from the rule five at some point in the next couple of months. And again, they could have just very much done that at the end of the season if they promoted him to AAA, but I digress. And the other factor that plays into how long he's gonna be with San Francisco, specifically, and this is a good segue into the Harrison Bader portion of this, is how long does it take Harrison Bader to rehab from the left pad injury, the heel pad injury, rather, that he has currently sustained. Uh, he landed on the injured list on Saturday. Uh he sustained that injury during Friday's game. He was taken out of the game as a defensive replacement for Drew Gilbert going into the bottom of the ninth. And this is the second time this season that he's had to hit the injured list due to an ailment. The first time was with a left hamstring ailment that actually cropped up at the very end of spring training. Recovered from it, but it was a little bit rushed, kind of played through it a little bit. It ends up hitting the injured list in mid-April, ends up coming back on May 11th. And he actually provided something of an offensive spark once he returned from the injured list uh over the next 15 games from May 11th onward. He hit four homers that included two grand slams uh in a week. One was kind of a win-aided grand slam in Sacramento during that crazy game up in West Sack against the A's. And then you also had the grand slam at home against the White Sox, and then Rafael Debris hit a grand slam the next day as well, so that gave them three grand slams in an eight-game span. Uh he had a 768 or 769 OPS over that 15-game span. The on-based percentage and the batting average wasn't great, but you know, when you combine it with his defense, he was providing value. He was looking more so like the Harrison Bader that the Giants had signed on uh when they signed him to a two-year $20.5 million dollar deal. And now they're gonna be without him for at least the next week and a half. Uh does he return during this Milwaukee-Chicago road trip? I doubt so. I don't think we'll see him until uh the Giants return to San Francisco. Maybe not necessarily any need uh to rush it, and I don't think the math even shakes out that he would be ready in time for the Cubs series. To transition from someone going on the injured list to a pair of players coming off the injured list, Jung Hu Lee and Logan Webb were activated from the injured list uh prior to the Giants series against the Colorado Rockies on Friday. Webb actually made his first start on that Friday. It was his first start since May 5th when he pitched a season low four innings. And the final line, it was kind of so-so by Webb's standards, even when you account for the fact that it was his first uh in a couple weeks. Uh four and a third innings, one earned run, five strikeouts, three walks, one hit by pitch. But the most important thing to come out of that outing was the fact that Webb said it was as good as he's felt physically uh in a quite a long time. So that's a good sign for Webb going forward. Uh and then Junghoo Lee had one of his best seasons, one of his best individual series rather, uh, pretty much as a giant. He went 11 for 15 at the plate. He had two doubles, he had a triple, he's batting, I think, 303 on the season thus far. And if he can carry this momentum from this series into the rest of the season, his he's actually sneakily been a very solid hitter this year overall, especially when you account for the defense out in right field. So that's a really good sign for Jung Hoo to have a series like this, and we'll see if he can carry that momentum into the rest of the season. The battery on my camera is unfortunately about to die, so I've got to wrap this up right here. Justice Del Santos, San Jose Mercury News, East Bay Times, whatever you want to call us, as long as you read, as long as you subscribe, follow us on Apple, follow us on Spotify. Appreciate y'all as always, and I will catch you in the next one.