SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- Daniel Susac’s Giants ties run deep. Susac’s older brother, Andrew, served as Buster Posey’s backup catcher in San Francisco from 2014-15, which meant the Roseville, Calif., native bled orange and black during his formative years as a teenage baseball fan. “My brother was on the team,” Susac said. “Even if I didn’t like them, I had to. I went to a lot of games growing up, so it was a lot of fun.” Now, Susac will have a chance to follow in Andrew’s footsteps and script his own chapter with the Giants. A former first-round Draft pick of the Athletics, Susac was selected by the Twins in the Rule 5 Draft in December and then immediately flipped to the Giants, who plan to give the 24-year-old prospect -- rated the 15th-best in San Francisco’s system by MLB Pipeline in 2025 -- a chance to compete for the No. 2 catcher job behind Patrick Bailey this spring. The 6-foot-4 Susac hit .275 with an .832 OPS and 18 home runs over 97 games with Triple-A Las Vegas in 2025, so he knew he had a good chance of being taken in the Rule 5 Draft after the A’s decided not to add him to their 40-man roster over the offseason. |
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He tuned in to watch the event on the livestream and was happy to hear his name called by Minnesota, though it wasn’t long before he started hearing rumors that he’d been dealt to San Francisco in exchange for 17-year-old catching prospect Miguel Caraballo and cash considerations. Susac said the first person who told him about the trade was Andrew, who quickly assured him that he was in good hands with the Giants. “I was excited when it happened,” Susac said. “[Andrew] gave me the full rundown. He’s always spoken highly of the organization, so I already had that in my brain from him.” Susac, of course, didn’t need much of a refresher on recent Giants history. He was 13 years old when Andrew won a World Series ring with the Giants in 2014, giving him a front row seat to some of the most dramatic moments in franchise history. He vividly remembers being in the stands when Travis Ishikawa blasted his pennant-clinching, walk-off home run against the Cardinals in Game 5 of the 2014 National League Championship Series in San Francisco. “That was a crazy one,” Susac said. “I just remember I kept going from place to place, watching throughout the stadium. I was with my cousin Sophia when he hit the home run. We were just going crazy, jumping up and down. Right when he hit it, we knew it was gone. That was a special moment.” Susac got to join his family in the clubhouse for the postgame celebration, where he snapped a photo with Posey, who is now the Giants’ president of baseball operations. Susac wasn’t on hand to watch the Giants beat the Royals in Game 7 of the 2014 World Series at Kauffman Stadium -- he had to stay home and go to school -- but he followed the action closely on the radio. |
“We had like a superstition where we had to listen to the game in the car, because they would win if we were in the car,” Susac said. “That’s probably what I remember most, listening to the games with my mom in the car.” The Giants will be evaluating a few other backup catcher options this spring, including Jesus Rodriguez and non-roster invitee Eric Haase, but Susac should be in the driver’s seat for the job due to his Rule 5 Draft status. If he’s not kept on the 26-man roster for the entire season, he’ll have to be offered back to the A’s, so the Giants will certainly be incentivized to keep him in their catching mix this season. “I think my mindset stays the same,” Susac said. “It’s just kind of show up every day and work hard and let the chips fall where they may. I think that’s just going to be my mindset every day. Just keep stacking days and keep trying to get better.” Susac’s right-handed pop should make him a nice complement to Bailey, but the Giants have been pleased by what they’ve seen from him defensively, as well. “I think the receiving is good for how long he is,” manager Tony Vitello said. “I think he's in a developmental stage, too. That's more as a compliment that I think he's a long way from his ceiling, as far as how good he can get back there. His arm strength is surprising everybody. I'd say more so the infielders. He's done well. He's strong, too, for how lean he is.” Susac already has a fan in right-hander JT Brubaker, who also played with Andrew on the Pirates in 2020. “He’s very talented back there,” Brubaker said. “The day Daniel got traded here, Andrew texted me and said, ‘Hey, you’re with the Giants still, right?’ I was like, ‘Yeah.’ He goes, ‘Well, they just traded for my brother, so you’ll get to mess with little Suss now.’” |
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New Giants hitting coach Hunter Mense knows he has an eerily similar name to former outfielder Hunter Pence. In fact, Mense couldn’t escape Pence’s shadow when he played in the South Atlantic League in 2008, three years after the four-time All-Star made his way through the same Minor League circuit. Mense still remembers being taunted by a fan in West Virginia who yelled, “Quit trying to be like Hunter Pence! You’re not him!” “I was like, ‘I’m not trying to be him,’” Mense recalled. Two or three years later, Mense ran into Pence during Spring Training and decided to introduce himself, which made for an entertaining exchange. “I said, ‘Hey, my name is Hunter Mense,’” he said. “And he goes, ‘No!’, with the craziest expression. ‘You’re lying to me.’ I said, ‘No, I’m serious. It actually is.’” The near name twins have yet to reconnect since Mense joined the Giants, but they’ll likely be seeing plenty of each other this season since Pence now works as a broadcaster for the team. “I will actually tell people when they read my name and I say it’s Hunter Mense, they look up at me and I say, ‘Just like Hunter Pence,’ and they never forget it,” Mense said. “I’ll use it a lot here because people will know.” |
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