No player wants to lose their roster spot, but there is likely at least some relief for Luciano, who has been riding the DFA carousel all winter. That club had been a promise to the Giants for years and put him on waivers in early December. He went via the waiver wire to the Pirates, Orioles and Yankees in recent months. Now that he’s finally out, he’s been bumped to non-roster status, but at least he now knows where to report when spring training starts next week.
Now 24, Luciano has made his way through the minor leagues as a prospect. He emerged as a shortstop and was once considered the heir apparent Brandon Crawford as the mainstay in that position in San Francisco.
However, he did not find as much success in the higher levels of the minors. He also struggled defensively and the Giants moved him to left field last year with Willy Adames signed to take over at shortstop, which only put more pressure on his bat.
Over the past two years, Luciano has made 939 trips to the plate at the Triple-A level, with 33 home runs in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League. He drew walks in 16% of his trips to the plate, an excellent clip, but was also struck out 29.1% of the time. His combined .229/.354/.400 line in those two years translated into a 101 wRC+. Luciano has also exhausted his three option years over the past three seasons. He got brief looks in the majors and was sent to the plate 126 times, but struck out on 35.7% of those trips while producing a .217/.286/.304 line.
Given the prospect’s former pedigree and his relative youth, teams are clearly still interested, hence all the waiver claims. But the strikeouts, lack of options and defensive questions all pushed him to a marginal roster spot.
The Yankees will look to unlock something with Luciano in Triple-A. He only played in the outfield in 2025, but the Yanks announced him as an infielder/outfielder, so maybe they’ll try him out on the field. He does hit from the right side and the Yanks have a fairly lefty lineup. They are connected to right bats such as Paul Goudschmidt, Randal Grichuk And Austin Slater in free agency, but perhaps Luciano can provide some help in that area as the season progresses. If he is added back to the roster at some point, he will be out of options, but will have less than a year of service time and therefore could be controlled for six seasons before hitting free agency.
Photo courtesy of Robert Edwards, Imagn Images
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