Player review: Brett Wisely

The utility infielder entered the Major League conversation in 2024 with come clutch offensive moments and consistent defense, but he’ll still be fighting for a roster spot in 2025.

2024 stats: 91 G, 272 PA, .238/ .278/ .345/ .623 OPS, 76 OPS+, 0.5 bWAR; hit .333 with .818 OPS with RISP (70 PA)

Add Brett Wisely to the list of young San Francisco Giants position players who had a “moment” in 2024.

As far as “moments” goes, Wisely’s fit his bench-depth, utility-role, understated style. It wasn’t as noteworthy or as sustained as Heliot Ramos’s or Tyler Fitzgerald’s, nor was it as energetic or as brief as Luis Matos’s. There was never a torrent of offense unexpectedly unleashed — just a high average punctuated by clutch RBI singles.

Hits coming in batches, solid and flexible defense to help add some clarity to an at times, opaque middle infield — this was the Wisely Way.

Called up in May with the rest of the 2024 Giants, Wisely rode a lot of pine for his first week and a half in San Francisco while Bob Melvin worked through his shortstop conundrum after Nick Ahmed took to the IL with a wrist injury. Wisely watched from the bench as Casey Schmitt and Marco Luciano both handled a clutch of games at short before he got the chance to match-up against a right-hander in Pittsburgh on May 23rd.

Brett Wisely meet Paul Skenes.

The Giants’ number 9 hitter traded blows with the National League’s Rookie of the Year, singling in his first at-bat and flying out to deep left in the second.

While Skenes didn’t factor into the decision, Wisely did. Down four runs in the 8th inning, San Francisco clawed their way back into the game with a 3-run homer from Matt Chapman and a pinch-hit, game-tying single from Wilmer Flores. Two outs and the lead run on second, Wisely faced Aroldis Chapman.

The veteran reliever punched a mid-90s sinker over the heart of the plate to steal strike one then dropped a slider under Wisely’s bat for strike two. Miles ahead in the count with match-up advantage against a kid just up from triple-A, Chapman chose power, thus ego, over the smart choice. Instead of spiking a slider, as Dave Flemming posited on the broadcast, or seeing if Wisely would chase the breaking ball’s tail off the plate, Chapman went with his four-seamer. A pitch designed to shame. A 97 MPH right over the heart of the plate did the opposite. Wisely squared it up with an easy, balanced swing, sending the baseball right back up the middle to knock in the winning run.

Over his next three appearances, Wisely would record 7 hits and 4 RBIs as the starting shortstop while only striking out once. He capped a 3-hit performance against New York with another tie-breaking single in the 10th. Another 2-strike situation, another poorly located four-seamer that Wisely didn’t miss. The next day he slugged his first homer of the season off Sean Manaea, another lefty. At home against Philly, Wisely ripped a lead-stretching double in the 6th for his second knock and second RBI of the day.

The hot bat batched together more hits in serieses against the Yankees and Arizona as Wisely maneuvered over to second base. He was hitting .350 at this point with an .816 OPS (41 PA) as well as the added distinction of having a higher average than on-base percentage since he had yet to work a base-on-balls.

Infield reinforcements of Thairo Estrada and Nick Ahmed returned soon after from the IL, but by then Wisely had become a known entity.

The left-side swing allowed him to stay relevant as a platoon with Ahmed at short, then as a platoon with Fitzgerald at second when Estrada’s production fell off. And the knocks kept coming in bunches. Through June, he slashed .296/ .325/ .444 while ping-ponging between short and second. 12 of the 19 games he hit safely in were multi-hit showings.

The month ended on a high with Wisely lifting a walk-off homer onto the arcade to emphatically beat LA. In another two strike count, against Blake Treinen and one of the best sweepers in the game, the rookie utility kid, number ‘0’ delivered. Wisely knew what was coming. You can see how Wisely stays balanced as the pitch breaks. His eyes follow it down and his knees drop as the bat comes around and launches it into the night.

In an article written the next day, Bryan Murphy proclaimed that the narrative had changed (at least for this season) around the Giants frustrating development of prospects. The under-29’s were finally producing at the big league level, and Wisely’s swing broke open the dam. Fitzgerald’s power surged, Ramos earned an All-Star nod… unfortunately Wisely proved to be collateral damage as the water’s burst forth.

After hitting .279 with a .736 OPS over 157 PA in the first half, Wisely’s second half numbers sagged to a .181 batting average and .466 OPS over 115 PA.

That’s not to say he didn’t have more lower-case moments. Another back against the wall RBI single in the bottom of the 9th against Toronto led to a win. Three days later, I declared Wisely as “our shortstop” (rather cheekily) after going 3-for-3 while flashing some leather in the field — most importantly in the face of Carlos Correa. But the average had started to fall, and his power numbers were never strong enough to hold up the weight of that decline.

Post All-Star break, Wisely lost the shortstop gig he briefly held to Fitzgerald and was relegated to a platoon role at second with Casey Schmitt. He was optioned in mid-August to make room for Estrada and was recalled in late-August after Estrada was released, only to be put on notice by the confounding addition of Donovan Walton. That move had a faint scent of sense given how far the offense had fallen off for Wisely, but Walton’s presence reeked mostly of desperation. The last ditch hack of Zaidi trying to reclaim the plug-and-play Midas touch he once boasted to the possible detriment of another young player trying to rediscover his footing.

The Walton play thankfully didn’t last long. Wisely ended the year somewhat where it began: a limited role at second, watching from the dugout as his counterpart Casey Schmitt claimed a bit of the limelight.

Despite the stand-out moments he had on the field in 2024, Wisely’s path forward as a Giant in 2025 feels just as convoluted and thickety as it did a year ago. Positive adjustments were made at the plate, though I’m skeptical if they’re enough to move the overall needle on his offensive profile. The potential for average is there, but the power potential of Fitzgerald, Schmitt and even Luciano leave Wisely in their wake. Nothing jumps out at all in terms of swing metrics other than an above average contact rate.

The fact that he’s a lefty ostensibly makes him standout as a bench piece for Bob Melvin in a righty-heavy lineup, but Wisely actually is a bit of a split-buster against same-side arms. His .831 OPS against lefties (60 PA) in 2024 outshone his .563 OPS against righties (212 PA) — though those splits can be taken with some salt given the discrepancy in number of opportunities.

What Wisely really has going for him is his defense. Statistically, he graded out better than the rest of the 2025 Giants options at second (2 OAA, 2 DRS), as well as at shortstop (4 OAA, 2 DRS) while logging significant time at both middle infield positions. Arm strength, however, limits him from expanding to third, and in the Spring Training battle between him and Schmitt, those pluses-and-minuses matter. His stature reads as a second baseman, and if we were back in the pre-1990’s when middle-infielders had height and weight restrictions, Wisely would be the guy. But the other positives he has going for him — being a lefty, an outfield option in the pinchiest pinch there is, a position player arm able to pitch in a blow out — aren’t much on paper, given the need for the Giants’ need to wring as much offense as possible from each position.

With the addition of Willy Adames, the entry points for infielders has thinned. Given Fitzgerald’s standing in the club right now, a Wisely-Schmitt do-si-do at second doesn’t look likely. Since both players have one more option remaining, the most likely scenario is that both will have plenty of opportunities to fulfill next year’s infield depth role in San Francisco, just not at the same time. The Spring Training bout will be about who gets first dibs.

Oh, and congrats from everyone here at McCovey Chronicles, Inc.!