SAN FRANCISCO — After being passed from team to team all year, Andrew Knapp hopes his latest landing spot will be his last one. He grew up rooting for the Giants, who became the fourth team he has suited up for this season when they activated him before Wednesday's series finale against the Padres.
"It's pretty surreal, to be honest," Knapp said. "It's been a pretty crazy year for me. But to end up back on the team that I grew up watching, it's pretty awesome."
The Giants added Knapp to the roster to give them a second true catcher, after Joey Bart was diagnosed with a concussion from a foul tip Monday night. After briefly serving as the emergency backup on Tuesday (while also manning first base), Yermín Mercedes was optioned to Triple-A Sacramento in a corresponding move.
It was hard to improve on Knapp's situation in Sacramento, but a major-league job in San Francisco probably does the trick.
Not only was Knapp, a Cal graduate who grew up outside Sacramento, playing in the same ballpark he attended games at as a kid, his own 1-year-old son, Brady, was now experiencing the same.
"Definitely full circle," said Knapp, who initially kept an offseason home in San Francisco after being drafted but moved to Sacramento in 2019.
Even better for Knapp: the gig came with regular at-bats, which he used to rediscover his switch-hitting swing to the tune of a 1.007 OPS in 25 games with the River Cats (along with eight home runs and a .312 batting average).
"Personally, it's been really nice to get some playing time," Knapp said. "When you're in the big leagues and you're in the backup role, starts come sporadically. But being able to get five or six starts a week of at-bats, I feel like I've been able to find my swing again and get comfortable from both sides of the plate."
Before this season, Knapp had played in one organization his entire career — overlapping with Gabe Kapler during his two years managing the Phillies — so the waiver-wire whirlwind from Cincinnati to Pittsburgh to Seattle and, now, in San Francisco has been something new for the 30-year-old veteran.
"Pretty much the opposite of how my career's gone up to this point," Knapp said. "Being back with Gabe is great. We had two years in Philly together, and that familiarity is going to be really nice coming into the clubhouse."
Knapp had no trouble adjusting in the Giants clubhouse.
Joc Pederson greeted him with a big hug.
Knapp said he also shares a friend circle with Austin Slater, college rivals at Cal and Stanford who bonded as professionals while spending offseasons in the Bay Area. Logan Webb, who went to Rocklin High, was a few years before Knapp's time at Granite Bay High, but that didn't prevent Knapp from regaling the schools' rivalry.
"It's a good rivalry," said Knapp, who also lined up at free safety on the football team. "I think we got them in football but they got us back to back years in section baseball. That stings a little bit."
All the moving around this season has only helped prepare Knapp for the biggest challenge any new catcher faces: learning a new pitching staff. Knapp estimated he had worked with 100 different pitchers this season.
"Andrew is a preparer, so one of the things that I think is comforting for me is he's going to know our pitchers quickly," Kapler said. "It's not going to take him long to get comfortable game-planning with our pitching coaches. He's just going to be good at it. He's been around the game a long time and has a strong track record of being able to prepare for a major-league contest."
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