The tough decisions Buster Posey faces as he builds the Giants’ 2026 roster

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Two starting pitchers. A closer. A setup man. An improved defensive outfield. A power-hitting right fielder. A backup catcher. A leadoff hitter. A decision at second base.

Wow, Buster Posey has a lot to figure out, and that doesn’t even include finding a new manager and coaching staff.

The Giants are in for a busy offseason. They’re a .500 team with an eye on the postseason next year, and Posey will be considering all options to improve his roster, from free agency to trades to making the most of what he has in house.

For someone who signed Willy Adames to the largest contract in franchise history, traded for Rafael Devers in a blockbuster deal, and fired manager Bob Melvin, Posey isn’t afraid to make bold moves, and more can be expected this winter.

Before he dives into the open market, a priority is analyzing all internal options beyond the lineup core of Adames, Devers, and Matt Chapman and the rotation anchors of Logan Webb, Robbie Ray, and Landen Roupp.

“I think there’s a lot of meat on the bone with some of our other players to continue to improve,” Posey said at his season-ending news conference.

Let’s take a gander.

The left fielder took a step backward from his 2024 All-Star season. He had some big moments in 2025 including as the leadoff hitter, but he also had some regrettable moments, especially on defense and on the basepaths. Remember the infield fly rule fiasco? There’s not much room for him to be a designated hitter if first basemen Devers and Bryce Eldridge alternate in the DH spot, so defense will be a focus if there’s not a plan to find another left fielder.

“I certainly believe there’s still a lot of room for him to improve his game overall, and I think he knows that,” Posey said. “One thing that I’ve learned about Ramos, being around him more consistently, is he’s an extremely hard worker. He wants to be a complete baseball player, and it’s a great starting point when you’ve got that mentality.”

Through April and into May, Lee played like an All-Star. Then he stopped hitting. He made some tremendous plays in center field but sometimes had issues with his jumps and tracking the ball. In a perfect world, Lee would take better advantage of his speed by bunting for hits, spraying the ball to all fields and stealing bases – becoming a valuable leadoff hitter. In his defense, this was the longest season of his career, and he admitted to being fatigued. KBO schedules go 144 games, and Lee this year played 150.

“It was a really important year for him,” Posey said, “very much a learning year just to be able to navigate an entire major-league season. The travel, the intensity of the games, coming off of an injury where he didn’t play very much. He started off hot, scuffled a bit, and really played pretty consistently down the stretch. Jung Hoo knows that part of his value is his defense as well, and it’s something that will be emphasized going forward.”

After taking second-half dives the previous two seasons, it was encouraging that Bailey’s best month was September: .288 batting average, .814 OPS. He had four homers in the month after homering just twice the first five months, one inside-the-parker. He played his typical Gold Glove-level defense and caught 132 games, tied with J.T. Realmuto for most in the league.

“Bailey made some great progress this year,” Posey said. “I was impressed with his availability, No. 1. He was back there a lot, especially the last couple of months of the season.”

He’s potentially the No. 2 catcher after hitting .300 at nearly every stop in the minors. Acquired from the Yankees’ system in the Camilo Doval trade, he has yet to appear in the majors, but he spent the season’s final week on the Giants’ taxi squad, working out with the team and spending time with coaches refining his catching skills.

“He does not have a ton of experience behind the plate,” Posey said, “but hard worker and great aptitude from what I’ve been told. He’s a guy we’re excited about, but we’ll remain open to other options.”

The Giants’ top prospect underwent surgery Thursday to remove a bone spur from his left wrist and will need eight weeks of recovery. That leaves plenty of time to continue working on his hitting approach and defense. His small-sample-size stats weren’t good (13 strikeouts in 28 at-bats), but when he made contact, he crushed the ball. Until further notice, the Giants seem fine entering next season with Devers and Eldridge sharing first-base and DH duties.

“With Bryce, I was really impressed. I thought he looked good at first base,” Posey said. “I know he’s been working his tail off to improve his defense, and I thought Devers got more comfortable at first base. It’s a good problem to have, two guys that you’re really excited about that are left-handed power bats.”

After the Tyler Fitzgerald experiment went sideways, Schmitt and Koss got most of the reps at second base. Schmitt (a third baseman by trade) showed more pop. Koss (a shortstop by trade) flashed more range. Posey said of the second-base tandem, “We’ll continue to evaluate them going into spring training.”

The energetic outfielder, acquired in the Tyler Rogers trade, made a huge impact on defense but was overmatched at the plate, hitting under .200. He seems a better defender than Lee and way better than Ramos, and perhaps he’ll hit well enough in spring training to become the fourth or fifth outfielder. The Giants need a bigger presence in right field and should be all in on Kyle Tucker, the top free agent on the market. Posey hinted he’ll go outside the organization for a new right fielder.

“We’ve got some options there, different players internally that we can look at and evaluate,” Posey said, “but we’re going to always look at options on ways that we think we can improve our roster.”

All are free agents, and it’s a good bet all will play elsewhere next season. Verlander, after a strong finish, will get offers the Giants might not want to match. Flores isn’t needed because of the surplus at first base. And Smith would provide nice roster depth with his willingness to play the outfield, but it would be a stretch for the Giants to carry three left-handed-hitting first basemen; he could find a team where he could be an everyday player.

“I have a tremendous amount of respect for all of them,” Posey said. “They go about things the right way. I played with Wilmer, just a pro’s pro. Verlander the same thing. So impressive just to watch a guy who’s done it as long as he has. He has nothing left to prove, and you watch him, this guy looks like he’s making his first start every time out. Dom, another pro. He really stabilized us when we came up. They’re discussions we’ll have throughout the offseason. I’m a big fan of all three of those guys.”

Webb, Ray, and Roupp are penciled in, and the Giants learned they can’t trust prospects to round out their rotation. Hayden Birdsong didn’t pan out. Kyle Harrison was traded. Carson Whisenhunt got hurt. In the end, the Giants were left with a three-man rotation and two days of rolling the dice. Lesson learned. It’s time to bring in at least two veterans – Dylan Cease, Ranger Suárez, Framber Valdez, and Zac Gallen are among the biggies in free agency – and use their young starters, including Kai-Wei Teng, Trevor McDonald, and Blade Tidwell, as rotation depth.

“There’s obviously some opportunity as we sit here today,” said general manager Zack Minasian, who accompanied Posey at the news conference. “We’ll see what that looks like in February, but starting pitching can kind of come out of nowhere to some extent. You look at Logan Webb in 2020 and then Logan Webb in 2021 and what he’s been. There’s a natural maturation for young pitchers at the big-league level of just having to go through some bumps and bruises. It’s not often that you see young pitchers come up and dominate right away, and it doesn’t mean that they can’t be very good going forward.”

In his final two months as manager, Melvin was limited with his bullpen choices after Rogers and Doval were dealt at the deadline and All-Star Randy Rodríguez and Erik Miller sustained season-ending injuries. Only Miller will be back in 2026, so a restructuring is in order. The Giants got a head start with the emergence of Joel Peguero and lefties Joey Lucchesi and Matt Gage. Ryan Walker and Spencer Bivens, who earned saves in the final two games, were the lone relievers to stick around all season. 

“It’s up to us to try to add some pieces that do create more depth on the pitching side,” Posey said. “You’re hoping that each year, some of these young arms will take a step forward. That’s something that needs to happen. We need to be better at it next year. We’re most definitely open to trying to add some arms that we think are going to help us on the starting side and the bullpen side.”