Giants promote Triple-A catcher Drew Cavanaugh after breakout season
Drew Cavanaugh forced the issue at Triple-A, then got the call when Daniel Susac landed on the injured list and made his MLB debut the same night.
The Giants selected Drew Cavanaugh from Triple-A Sacramento on Friday after rookie Daniel Susac went on the 10-day injured list with a lower back strain, and the move opened the door for Cavanaugh to make his big-league debut that night at Oracle Park. Wilkin Ramos was designated for assignment to clear the 40-man roster spot, turning a strong Triple-A run into an immediate major-league opportunity.
Cavanaugh’s promotion came after he batted .315 with a .455 on-base percentage and a .608 slugging percentage with eight home runs in 39 games between Double-A Richmond and Sacramento. He was not simply filling time in the upper minors, either. After the Giants moved him to Sacramento on May 12 to help handle the River Cats’ catching duties, he hit .368 with a 1.155 OPS and two home runs over his first 10 games there, a burst that made the decision harder to delay.
The timing mattered for a Giants catching group that had already been in flux. Earlier in the year, the club carried Daniel Susac, Jesus Rodriguez and Eric Haase on the major-league roster, and Susac had been competing for the backup job in spring training after joining the organization in a Rule 5-related move. Cavanaugh’s emergence gave the Giants another option with real production behind it, not just a stopgap for an injury.
Cavanaugh, 24, was born Jan. 27, 2002, in Troy, Michigan, bats left-handed and throws right-handed. The Giants drafted him in the 17th round of the 2023 MLB Draft, 510th overall, out of Florida Southern, and his rise has become one of the organization’s cleaner development stories in 2026. He had six homers in Sacramento by June 24, a sign his power was holding as the level of competition rose.
His first career hit came in his debut on June 26, another small but telling marker for a player who kept answering every level with more damage at the plate. With Susac sidelined and Ramos removed from the roster picture, Cavanaugh’s arrival became less about future depth and more about a catcher who hit his way into a sudden big-league need.
This article was produced by Prism’s automated news system from verified source data, official records, and press releases, then run through automated quality and moderation checks before publishing. The system is built and supervised by the people who set the standards it runs under. Read our full AI policy.
Did this article answer your question?
