Miguel Gomez Moves Around Diamond

SAN FRANCISCO—Take a switch-hitting catcher, move him to third base and watch him thrive.

That worked well for the Giants with Pablo Sandoval nearly a decade ago. It just might work again with 24-year-old Miguel Gomez.

In November, San Francisco added Gomez to its 40-man roster, protecting him from the Rule 5 draft, after he hit a combined .330/.363/.519 with 17 homers and 67 RBIs in 109 games at low Class A Augusta and high Class A San Jose in 2016.

Primarily a catcher and first baseman in his first four seasons, Gomez did not get behind the plate in 2016. He played 51 games at third base, 14 at first and eight at second.

So is Gomez a candidate to become Sandoval 2.0 for the Giants? General manager Bobby Evans said maybe, but not necessarily.

“In Pablo’s case, we saw the bat coming so quickly, we were almost scrambling to find a spot for him where we felt like he could stay and have success,” Evans said. “And fortunately, at the right time, we found it at third base.”

Sandoval had spent the bulk of his minor league tenure as a catcher and first baseman before his breakout 2008 season—he hit .350 with 20 homers and 95 RBIs at Class A and Double-A—earned him a big league callup that August.

Evans says the organization hasn’t ruled out Gomez returning to catching.

“It’s probably a hard call for us on where to settle, where to focus him as he starts to approach the upper levels,” he said. “We’d really like to focus (him) in one area. I think he’s probably most naturally a fit at third, but we’ll probably stay flexible.”

Signed out of the Dominican Republic in 2011, Gomez is listed at 5-foot-10, 185 pounds. In a way, whichever position or positions Gomez winds up playing is a secondary issue. His bat “is the thing that everybody talks about,” Evans said, “and there’s no arguing that part.”

GIANTICS

• The Giants hired Dave Brundage as manager at Triple-A Sacramento. He has 19 years of experience as a minor league manager.

• The Giants signed first baseman Mike Morse, shortstop Jimmy Rollins and outfielder Justin Ruggiano to minor league deals. Morse starred for the 2014 World Series winners, Rollins is a Bay Area native and Ruggiano inflicts damage on big league lefthanders (.252 isolated slugging).

— Steve Kroner covers the Giants for the San Francisco Chronicle