SAN DIEGO — Logan Webb is the inclusive type. He welcomes anyone to join his workout group in Arizona in the offseason. Status and service time do not matter. So this past offseason, Webb enthusiastically welcomed Grant McCray when the center field prospect began to show up.
Maybe too enthusiastically at times.
“I probably asked him every day in the offseason if he got the invite to big league camp,” Webb said. “When he finally did, I was super excited.”
McCray had just repeated High-A Eugene. He had made only the most modest progress in reducing an alarming strikeout rate. He was considered so far from major league-ready that the Giants did not add him to the 40-man roster last offseason and exposed him to the Rule 5 draft. But Webb knew that McCray’s defensive skills in center field would play at any level. His speed could be a game-changer. He just needed to experience the major league environment and understand that the end goal wasn’t as daunting as it might seem.
It’s essentially the same game no matter what level you play at. So even when McCray got reassigned early in the spring, Webb said he didn’t rule out the 23-year-old racing through the system and making his major league debut this year.
Logan Webb scattered 10 hits over six innings in Saturday’s 6-3 win against the Padres. (Chadd Cady / Imagn Images)
“He didn’t get to play very much in spring, but getting the experience of big league camp and being around the guys, I thought it was for sure possible,” Webb said. “I mean, the talent is there. You guys see it. He’s very quick twitch. He’s hitting balls a lot farther than what his body type would say. I just hope he keeps his confidence going.
“Just keep proving yourself and having fun doing it. That’s the message around here.”
McCray did plenty of both Saturday night while turning Petco Park into his personal stage. He hit a three-run home run in the second inning. He hit a two-run home run in the ninth inning. He plated another run when he made contact with the bases loaded and grounded into a double play. He brought in all the Giants’ runs in a 6-3 victory over the San Diego Padres, making a winner of Webb on an atypically scorching afternoon when the right-hander worked hard while scattering 10 hits over six innings, and yes, making management begin to rethink next year’s potential outfield configuration.
Grant McCray goes 417 to right to give the Giants the lead đź’Ş pic.twitter.com/bHtqPsLZY2
— SF Giants on NBCS (@NBCSGiants) September 8, 2024
“You can’t help but look at it differently,” said Giants manager Bob Melvin, who could envision several combinations with McCray, Heliot Ramos and Mike Yastrzemski, as well as a healthy Jung Hoo Lee, who is expected to make a full recovery from shoulder surgery. “Now, there’s still time to go and we want to see as much of him as we possibly can, but you can’t help to think, with Jung Hoo coming back too, what it could look like for us in the outfield next year.”
McCray, who does not lack confidence, has a pretty good idea, too.
“I’ve told a lot of people before, if me and Jung Hoo are in the same outfield, it’s going to be a bad day for everyone else coming to our ballpark or us going to theirs,” McCray said. “You’ll have to win on a lot of groundballs.”
Before the game, Melvin was asked a couple of big-picture questions and acknowledged that management would have to consider a different roster configuration in some areas. McCray’s closing speed, premium arm strength and base-running ability would appear to supply what the team has lacked.
“That’s something we need to look at a little bit harder: how games are played in our ballpark,” Melvin said. “Maybe we need a little more athleticism and different ways to score as well as good defense. It’s exciting to look at the athleticism now and how much ground we can cover out there. Base stealing, putting more pressure, it’s something we’re deficient in especially early in the season. It’s exciting to see how they’re playing.
“We’ll get there down the road. We signed Jung Hoo to be the center fielder. Right now, McCray is out there because that’s his natural position. But it’s a good problem to have going forward.”
McCray, asked about his future role, gave a refreshing answer. He chose honesty over diplomacy.
“I’m a center fielder. I’ll just say it,” he said. “I’ve been a center fielder since I was a kid and that’s where I feel the most comfortable. But if I gotta play in the corners, I gotta play in the corners and do my job.”
There are still three weeks remaining in the season, but it’s safe to say that the Giants have seen enough from McCray to be intrigued — and not just by Saturday night’s breakout performance. It was the first time a Giant hit at least two home runs and five RBIs in a game since March 29 when Matt Chapman did it in this same ballpark in the second game of the season.
McCray is also the first Giant to hit five home runs in 19 games to begin his career since Jarrett Parker in 2015. That’s both an impressive accomplishment and a cautionary tale at the same time. Whether it’s Parker, a short-lived big leaguer who hit three homers against Melvin’s A’s at the Coliseum in that season, or Casey Schmitt’s sizzling debut last season, or Luis Matos’ historic deluge of RBIs in May that dried up after a week, there’s a danger in extrapolating performance from a rookie’s hot streak.
Especially when McCray’s strikeout rate remains worrisome. It was 29.9 percent when he split 2022 between Low-A San Jose and Eugene, then 29.3 percent with Eugene last season, then 28.7 percent between Double-A Richmond and Triple-A Sacramento this year. His strikeout rate in 19 big league games is 39.7 percent. That’s even higher than Joey Bart’s strikeout rate (38.9 percent) over parts of four seasons with the Giants — a metric that ultimately convinced management to give up on him.
Sure, it’s possible to be a valuable major league player with a strikeout rate approaching or even exceeding 30 percent. The Pirates’ Oneil Cruz and the Reds’ Elly De La Cruz are two young examples. But you’d better hit for power and you’d better have the athleticism to contribute in other areas.
For now, McCray is doing all the right things to impress. His home run in the second inning was a 417-foot blast that erased a 2-0 deficit and it came against right-hander Dylan Cease, who ranked second among major league starters with 11.0 strikeouts per nine innings. McCray’s second home run, another no-doubter that he admired while getting a walking start out of the box, came in a left-on-left matchup against Yuki Matsui, who had allowed just two home runs to left-handed hitters all season.
Which home run did McCray consider the most encouraging?
“Honestly Cease, tougher pitcher,” McCray said. “I actually enjoy hitting against lefties. I hit better against them in the minor leagues. Cease is a tough pitcher, up for the Cy Young almost every year, so to do some damage off him was awesome.”
Against lefties, McCray began to explain that his approach is to simplify and try to use the opposite field. Then he stopped and smiled.
“Today I just did the opposite, I guess,” he said.
Where is this power coming from, anyway? How is he putting a charge into balls like he’s Ramos, who is well beyond his weight class?
“Shoot, I don’t know, you tell me, bro,” McCray said. “I’ve never been a power hitter until a couple years ago. It’s all in the hips, man. All in the hips, I guess. I don’t know. Ball just jumps off, man.”
Grant McCray does it AGAIN 🤯 pic.twitter.com/0cGjuoJOSa
— SF Giants on NBCS (@NBCSGiants) September 8, 2024
Even if McCray keeps impressing the rest of the month, it’s hard to imagine that the Giants would brand him as an incumbent starting outfielder next season. There’s still a place on the roster for Yastrzemski, who generates enough offensive and defensive value to be tenured a contract in the $10 million range as a third-year arbitration-eligible player.
Perhaps the ideal comparison for McCray would be hyper-athletic Arizona outfielder Jake McCarthy, who contributed off the bench in a fifth-outfielder role and eventually grew into everyday playing time. As the Giants saw with Matos, when there are still major issues in a hitter’s swing or approach to be addressed, those issues usually get exposed when they play every day.
As fun as it might be to wonder how far McCray’s talent could take him, perhaps the most sensible notion for now is to appreciate how far he’s already traveled.
Webb might have felt that McCray could be a big leaguer this season. But the manager and front office did not.
“We never envisioned him being here this season,” Melvin acknowledged. “Maybe next year. Everybody liked him in development. But it’s been so impressive.”
(Top photo: Chadd Cady / Imagn Images)
