KANSAS CITY, Mo. — It was around this time last year that the Giants’ top baseball official declared him their shortstop heading into this season. It’s been four months since he was supposed to get a “good shot” at the job. Nine weeks since the team dealt its designated hitter to open at-bats for him.
Marco Luciano is taking it all in stride.
“Playing time is something that you earn. It’s not something that they’re going to give to you. I’m well aware that I have not performed to my ability,” the newly 23-year-old top prospect said Friday in Spanish through team interpreter Erwin Higueros. “But I do know that I have the talent. I do know that I can play. Obviously when I get an opportunity to play, that’s what I’m trying to show: that I do belong.”
In a 10-minute interview prior to the Giants’ series opener against the Royals, Luciano was courteous, diplomatic and professional, even if he had every right to be confused about the organization’s handling of the player considered their top prospect since he was 17 years old.
His name was penciled in the lineup for the first time in four games and for only the eighth time in 16 games since being called up from Triple-A three days into September, when manager Bob Melvin outlined the latest iteration of their plans for Luciano to get the bulk of the playing time at second base.
Only after being mathematically eliminated Sunday was Melvin comfortable inserting Luciano into the starting lineup, and only with Mason Black, not one of their premier starting pitchers, on the mound. Even then, in the seventh inning, Melvin subbed in Donovan Walton as a defensive replacement to protect their 2-0 lead.
“You know, we’re officially out of it now,” Melvin said before Friday’s game, explaining the decision to start Luciano after playing Walton, a 30-year-old minor-league journeyman, at second base the past three games in Baltimore. “We’re still playing teams that are in the race, so we’ll pick our spots with him. I can’t let him sit too long. But there’s a lot that factors into it, right? You’ve got to factor in everything. Performance, too.”
Luciano is the first to admit he hasn’t performed up to his own expectations in the limited opportunities he has received at the big-league level.
In spring training, he struck out in 35% of his plate appearances and batted .227, prompting the organization to give the Opening Day job to veteran free agent Nick Ahmed. When Ahmed landed on the injured list, Luciano took full advantage of his chance offensively but made five errors at shortstop. Since moving to second base, he’s made mistakes to be expected from a player learning a new position and allowed his defensive difficulties to bleed into his production at the plate.
He has three hits, two walks and 14 strikeouts in 33 plate appearances this month, lowering his batting average to .211 and OPS to .562. He is 126 plate appearances into his big-league career and still in search of his first home run, despite slugging at a .456 rate throughout his time in the minor leagues.
“I think I just have to continue to work,” Luciano said. “I think the only bright spot (of this season) is that sometimes I’ve been good in my batting, my hitting, but I haven’t been consistent. … At this time, my frame of mind is, I don’t care where the manager, where they want me to play. They want me to play second, short, in the outfield, I really don’t care where I play. My main concern is I just want to get at-bats.”
It remains an open discussion in the organization whether Luciano will play winter ball in his native Dominican Republic for a third straight offseason. He was the top draft pick in the Dominican Winter League three years ago but aggravated his back injury in 2022 and struggled mightily last winter.
He told The Athletic earlier this month that he planned to skip winter ball and instead workout with his longtime trainer, Edwin Castillo. But on Friday, he said, “I could play, but I haven’t made up my mind. It’s not a sure thing yet” and declined to discuss the topic further.
Melvin said, “We brought it up. We’ll see how it goes and how the season ends. I don’t think anything has been decided there.”
Luciano’s positional future is just as much of an open question, with evaluators’ long-held doubts about his ability to stick in the infield largely vindicated by his defensive display this season and the Giants’ decision to move him off shortstop.
Melvin was asked about Luciano’s long-term defensive outlook but could only answer for the here and now.
“Right now,” he said, “it’s in the middle of the infield, could be second or short.”
Melvin acknowledged that the development Luciano requires is “hard” to achieve with the inconsistent playing time he’s gotten but pushed back on the notion that the organization has given him mixed messages, saying, “Look, he’s going to come to the ballpark and if his name is in the lineup, he’s going to play.
“Mixed messaging, I don’t know. Performance plays, too Yeah, there were some times that it looked like he might get some more at-bats and it hasn’t been consistent. It is what is.”
Luciano continues to take ground balls at second base and shortstop during pregame infield drills. When he’s not in the lineup, he said, he’s trying to learn through osmosis. “Watching our players, watching the other team, watching what they’re doing, watching mistakes that they’re making, watching how they adjust.”
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It’s all made for quite a different temperature than this time last season, when Luciano took over for Brandon Crawford in the final inning of their last game in what appeared to be a coronation and a changing of the guard from one franchise shortstop to another.
That same week, Farhan Zaidi said, “We view Marco as our shortstop next year.”
The Giants have eight games left on their schedule, but Melvin couldn’t guarantee how many would feature Luciano.
“There’s no real recipe for how many games the rest of the way. We’ll just see how the at-bats go and how he performs,” Melvin said. “We’ll see what the offseason brings for him. But it ended up being, at least at the big-league level, maybe not what he expected and maybe not what we expected.”