The San Francisco Giants have signed backup catcher Curt Casali who played for the Cincinnati Reds from 2018-2020 and has 37 career home runs in 831 at bats. He also accumulated 95 career walks and is an ideal backup catcher - he gets on base, provides some pop and is solid behind the plate. Casali will be the leading candidate to backup Buster Posey during the 2021 Season.

The Giants do have an array of excellent catchers including recent draft picks Joey Bart and Patrick Bailey. Bailey still has a lot of development to go through while Bart is likely to start the season in Triple A after an underwhelming rookie campaign in 2020. This leaves Posey, Casali and Chadwick Tromp, who was recently re-signed. Tromp, like Bart, has minor league options available and, therefore, is likely to begin the year in the minors as well.

This is an excellent signing by the Giants and Casali looks like a prime candidate to continue the Giants string of great backup catchers to Posey such as Nick Hundley and Stephen Vogt. Of course, Posey opted out of the 2020 season.

Meanwhile, the Giants are one of three teams that have shown interest in Japanese ace Tomoyuki Sugano, who had an outstanding 2020 going 14-2 with a 1.97 ERA and 131 strikeouts in just over 134 innings. He’s still only 31 years and and would be a huge asset to a team like the Giants who lack consistently effective starters in their rotation. The other two teams are the Blue Jays and Mets, although recent reports indicate that the Mets may be stepping out of the race.