Giants Designate Jared Oliva For Assignment
The Giants activated Jared Oliva from the 60-day injured list and then designated the outfielder for assignment. (The San Francisco Chronicle’s Shayna Rubin was among the beat writers to report the news.)
Oliva signed a minor league contract with San Francisco in February and then made the team’s Opening Day roster. After playing in 26 games with the Pirates in 2020-21, Oliva didn’t appear again in the big leagues until his seven games with the Giants this year, but his return to the Show was cut short by a hamate fracture in mid-April.
Such injuries usually lead to absences of 4-8 weeks, and Oliva has now logged 14 games of action during a minor league rehab assignment. As noted by Evan Webeck of the California Post, Oliva had reached the end of his 20-day rehab period, and the Giants chose to just designate the outfielder rather than activate Olivia and option him to the minors.
Oliva had one hit and one stolen base over seven plate appearances for San Francisco, and his career slash line is .175/.212/.206 over 66 PA with the Pirates and Giants. His career Triple-A numbers (.257/.331/.406 over 1377 PA) are better, but Oliva didn’t distinguish himself by hitting only .241/.288/.315 in 60 Triple-A plate appearances this year.
Stealing bases is Oliva’s calling card, as the 30-year-old has swiped 231 bags (out of 276 attempts) during his nine minor league seasons, highlighted by a 57-steal campaign with the Brewers’ Triple-A affiliate in 2025. Despite this ability on the basepaths and Oliva’s ability to play all three outfield positions, he hasn’t shown enough at the plate to merit much of a look at the MLB level.
Since Oliva doesn’t have the ability to reject an outright assignment, he’ll have to stick with the Giants if he clears waivers and is then outrighted to Triple-A. It is possible another team in need of outfield depth might have some interest on a waiver claim, and Oliva has two minor league option years remaining.
Giants Outright Will Brennan
The Giants announced that outfielder Will Brennan went unclaimed on waivers and has been assigned outright to Triple-A Sacramento. He was designated for assignment a week ago.
The 28-year-old Brennan reached three years of big league service with the Giants this season, which technically gives him the right to reject his assignment in favor of free agency. However, Brennan signed a split major league contract with San Francisco this offseason after being non-tendered in Cleveland. That deal pays him at a $900K rate in the majors and a $400K rate in the minors. Rejecting an outright would mean forfeiting those rates of pay, so Brennan will almost certainly accept the assignment and stick with the Giants as depth.
Brennan appeared in 11 games for rookie skipper Tony Vitello’s club this season. He picked up 23 plate appearances and tallied only two hits — both of them singles. Brennan didn’t draw a walk but also only punched out three times. He posted a huge 93.9% contact rate, but despite the frequency of contact, Brennan didn’t hit the ball hard. He also popped up to the infield three times in that tiny sample.
It may only have been 23 plate appearances, but those 23 turns at the plate are a microcosm of Brennan’s broader career. He’s played parts of four seasons in the majors with the Guardians and showed a similar penchant for high contact rates but low impact when he puts the ball in the play (with a susceptibility to infield flies). Brennan is a career .263/.301/.365 hitter in 889 big league plate appearances. He’s only struck out at a 12.7% clip but sports just a 4.7% walk rate. The 2019 eighth-rounder has averaged a well below-average 85.9 mph off the bat in the majors and has just a 31% hard-hit rate.
Brennan is a solid right field defender with plus-bat-to-ball skills, above-average speed and a pair of minor league options remaining. His low-power, contact-driven approach dates back to the minors, evidenced by a career .324/.368/.464 line and 12.6% strikeout rate in 744 Triple-A plate appearances. The Giants have Harrison Bader, Heliot Ramos and Jared Oliva on the major league injured and Grant McCray on the minor league injured list. Casey Schmitt, Drew Gilbert and Jung Hoo Lee are getting frequent run in the outfield right now, but Brennan might only be one injury away from getting another look on the big league roster. For now, he’ll play regularly with the RiverCats and wait for another opportunity.
The Giants’ More Appealing Expensive Trade Candidate
Above only the Rockies in the National League, the Giants are seemingly beginning preparation to sell at the deadline. The early focus has been on impending free agents Luis Arraez and Robbie Ray — as well as the team’s openness to shedding the Rafael Devers, Willy Adames and Matt Chapman contracts.
Those are all self-explanatory. Arraez is an obvious trade chip if they’re not going to sign him to an extension. They can pay down a portion of Ray’s $25MM salary to get a mid-tier prospect back for him. The other three contracts are above market value, especially the Adames and Devers deals. They’re not going to offload those entire contracts. Are they motivated enough that they’d pay down half the money to find a trade partner for Adames or Devers? Chapman’s deal isn’t as unfavorable but is also complicated by his full no-trade clause; he told Evan Webeck of The California Post last night that he hasn’t given the no-trade clause any thought because he hasn’t heard anything from president of baseball operations Buster Posey.
Adames, Devers and Chapman have three of San Francisco’s five significant long-term contracts. The team’s early messaging is that they’re not looking to move ace Logan Webb. There hasn’t been much speculation about Jung Hoo Lee, whom they could more easily replace than Webb but whose contract would be less onerous than those of their other three expensive hitters.
Unlock Subscriber-Exclusive Articles Like This One With a Trade Rumors Front Office Subscription
- Access weekly subscriber-only articles by Tim Dierkes, Steve Adams, and Anthony Franco.
- Join exclusive weekly live chats with Anthony.
- Remove ads and support our writers.
- Access GM-caliber tools like our MLB Contract Tracker
MLBTR Podcast: The Giants Prepare To Sell, Milwaukee’s Extension Strategy, And The Busy AL Central
The latest episode of the MLB Trade Rumors Podcast is now live on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts! Make sure you subscribe as well! You can also use the player at this link to listen, if you don’t use Spotify or Apple for podcasts.
This week, host Darragh McDonald is joined by Anthony Franco of MLB Trade Rumors to discuss…
- The Giants reportedly preparing to sell at the deadline (2:35)
- The Brewers extending Luis Lara and calling up Cooper Pratt (26:40)
- How should teams like the White Sox, Cardinals and Nationals approach the deadline when they are sort of rebuilding but keep winning? (33:25)
- The Tigers have reinstated Tarik Skubal from the injured list but still aren’t in a good spot (45:10)
- The Guardians losing José Ramírez to the injured list (recorded prior to the injury news on Angel Martínez and Chase DeLauter) (48:10)
- The Royals putting Vinnie Pasquantino and Seth Lugo on the injured list while dropping in the standings (49:55)
Plus, we answer your questions, including…
- What would it take for Bo Bichette to opt out of his deal with the Mets? (52:20)
- Who says no: Pirates receive Bryan Abreu and Isaac Paredes while the Astros receive Esmerlyn Valdéz, Rafael Flores and Tom Harrington? (58:15)
Check out our past episodes!
- A Free Agent Power Rankings Update And The Yankees Without Aaron Judge – listen here
- The CBA Standoff Begins – listen here
- Gage Jump, Tigers Trade Speculation, And The Twins’ Roster Shuffle – listen here
The podcast intro and outro song “So Long” is provided courtesy of the band Showoff. Check out their Facebook page here!
Photo courtesy of Robert Edwards, Imagn Images
Giants Reportedly Open To Offers On Devers, Adames
It’s exactly one year to the day since the Giants stunningly acquired Rafael Devers from the Red Sox. It’s a testament to how poorly this season has gone that ESPN’s Buster Olney reports that they’re already open to trade conversations involving Devers, Willy Adames and Matt Chapman.
Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reported this afternoon that San Francisco’s front office has begun to explore the possibility of a deadline sale. Rosenthal wrote that the Giants have no interest in moving ace Logan Webb but could explore making Chapman available. Impending free agents Luis Arraez and Robbie Ray are obvious trade candidates as well.
As MLBTR’s Darragh McDonald explored today, there should be no shortage of interest in Arraez. He’s one of the top impending free agents and playing on an affordable $12MM salary, around $3.5MM of which will be owed after the deadline. Ray’s $25MM salary (roughly $7.25MM owed after August 3) is more onerous and would likely require San Francisco to eat some money.
Neither of those compare to the challenge of moving any of Devers, Adames or Chapman. They’re not coincidentally the team’s three highest-paid players long term. Chapman is playing on a $25MM salary and owed $100MM between 2027-30. Adames has a modest $10MM salary this year but will make $28MM annually for five seasons after this one ($140MM total). Devers is making $27.5MM this season and signed for another $211MM over seven years beyond this one. That includes $7.5MM in annual deferrals but represents a huge commitment, larger than any other in team history.
That all makes it unsurprising that the Giants would be open to offers on those players. Adames and Chapman are already in their 30s. Devers turns 30 in October. All three contracts are above market, so the Giants would need to pay them down and/or take back salary offsets to make trades realistic.
Chapman is having the best season of the three. He started slowly from a power perspective but has caught fire with six home runs this month. He’s up to a .261/.348/.414 line on the season and is still a quality defensive third baseman, albeit below his Platinum Glove level peak. A $25MM salary isn’t a bargain but isn’t egregious for this year’s production. The issue is the matching commitments for his ages 34-37 campaigns, an age at which there hasn’t been a four-year free agent commitment for a position player since 2020.
Adames is 30 years old and hitting .229/.274/.418 through 299 plate appearances. He also has some of the worst defensive grades of any shortstop in MLB. Only Zach Neto has committed more errors than Adames’ 12. His first season in San Francisco essentially met expectations — he became the franchise’s first 30-homer hitter since Barry Bonds 21 years earlier — but it’s difficult to imagine them getting any trade interest given this year’s performance and the contract.
Devers has a subpar .235/.293/.413 batting line over 307 plate appearances. He’s striking out at a career-worst 30.3% rate while walking just 7.5% of the time. Devers still hits the ball hard but has seen his once elite hard contact rate and exit velocities dip to merely very good. He picked things up in May after a rough start, but he’s again mired in a .154/.267/.327 slump since the beginning of June. Devers was hampered by a disc injury in his back last summer and some minor hamstring discomfort this spring.
The Giants have limited long-term roster flexibility with Devers and Bryce Eldridge locked into the first base and designated hitter spots. The 21-year-old Eldridge has been a rare bright spot, making more contact than expected and immediately stepping up as one of the team’s top hitters.
Their lack of positional flexibility has already forced them to use Casey Schmitt, one of their better defensive infielders, out of position in left field. Schmitt is a good enough athlete that it’s not unreasonable for him to be a capable outfielder in time, but his early defensive grades on the grass have been rough. He could eventually move back to second base, assuming Arraez is traded at the deadline. Schmitt came up in offseason trade rumors himself, but that wouldn’t help them get younger or take any long-term money off the books.
Devers, Adames, Chapman and Webb are four of the team’s five players signed for more than $20MM next season. Webb is back to pitching at a top-of-the-rotation level and could net a huge prospect return if the front office reversed course and put him on the market.
Right fielder Jung Hoo Lee is their other particularly highly-priced player, signed for $63MM through 2029. Lee can opt out after the ’27 season and is having an excellent year, hitting .331/.364/.445 on the heels of a recent 18-game hitting streak. The Giants should probably hear teams out on Lee given the likelihood of him opting out in less than two years, though there’s no indication that’s currently on the table.
The outfield has been an issue even with Lee performing, so they might not to want to deal that big a hit to their 2027 roster, but they don’t seem particularly well positioned for an immediate rebound. Only the Rockies and Royals have a worse record than San Francisco’s 29-43 mark.
Giants Reportedly Moving Towards Selling At Deadline; No Plans To Trade Logan Webb
The Giants are in a tough spot, currently sporting a 29-43 record. The Rockies are the only team in the majors below them in the standings. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reports that the club hasn’t fully committed to selling but is moving in that direction. They have started “testing the waters” on potential deals and have “put out feelers” on some of their players. Rosenthal mentions infielder Luis Arraez and left-hander Robbie Ray as guys likely to be available, with third baseman Matt Chapman another possibility. One player not expected to be available is right-hander Logan Webb, as Rosenthal reports that the Giants have no plans to move him.
It has undoubtedly been a disappointing season for the Giants, who have been trying to push over the hump of contention for a while now. Late in 2024, they signed Chapman to a six-year, $151MM extension. Buster Posey was reportedly instrumental in orchestrating that deal even though he was merely a member of the club’s board of directors, not officially running the front office. The club then decided to fire president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi and give the job to Posey.
Since taking the helm, Posey made a couple of other bold moves that involved big financial commitments. He signed Willy Adames ahead of the 2025 season, giving him a seven-year, $182MM deal. One year ago today, they acquired Rafael Devers after he had a falling out with the Red Sox. Devers was still owed more than half of last year’s $27.5MM salary plus an extra $238.5MM in the eight remaining years on the deal.
Coming into 2026, they didn’t spend anywhere near that level, but did give eight-figure deals to Adrian Houser, Harrison Bader, Tyler Mahle and Arraez. They also made a notable expenditure in the dugout by bringing in Tony Vitello from the college ranks. They fired Bob Melvin, eating his $4MM salary. Then they had to pay a $3MM buyout to the University of Tennessee, on top of paying Vitello a $3.5MM annual salary on a three-year deal. Effectively, that means the Giants are paying $10.5MM on the manager position this year.
Despite all those investments, the Giants haven’t been able to gain much momentum. They hovered around .500 for most of the Zaidi era and finished 81-81 under Posey last year. As mentioned, this year is out to an even worse start. They are already nine games back of a playoff spot and 12 games under .500. With seven weeks to go until the deadline, it will be hard for them to avoid selling, so it makes sense that they would start canvassing other clubs.
Arraez and Ray would be the most clear-cut trade candidates, as both are impending free agents. Arraez should have more value since he is having a better season and getting paid less. The Giants effectively bought low on him. He won three straight batting titles from 2022 to 2024, with his batting average finishing between .314 and .354 in all three of those campaigns. That dipped to .292 last year as he battled a thumb injury. With that lesser offense and some questions about his defensive home, the Giants were able to sign him for a relatively modest $12MM one-year deal.
Arraez is back to his old self at the plate, hitting .319. He doesn’t take many walks or have much power but he’s the best in the game at putting the bat on the ball and finding some grass. Perhaps more remarkably, the Giants have put him at second base and seen him flourish. In previous years, his work at the keystone had been poor enough that he essentially became a full-time first baseman. But this year, he has been credited with nine Outs Above Average, second only to JJ Wetherholt at the position. Defensive Runs Saved has graded him as league average but even that is an improvement for him.
By the time the deadline rolls around, that deal will have about $4MM left to be paid out. That’s still a notable amount of money for a club to take on midseason. If the Giants are willing to absorb some of that, they could improve the prospect package they receive in return. Contenders such as the Rays, Dodgers, Rangers, Reds, Orioles and others have some current questions at second base and could be interested. Some clubs might also just want the bat and could acquire Arraez to play first base or serve as a designated hitter.
Ray is a former Cy Young winner but he’s a different pitcher now. Tommy John surgery wiped out most of his 2023 and 2024 seasons. He was back on the mound last year put up a solid 3.65 earned run average. This year, his age-34 season, he has a 4.42 ERA. That might not even accurately depict how rough his campaign has been. His 21% strikeout rate is below average and miles away from his peak. His 11.5% walk rate is more than two ticks above average. He’s had some help from a fortunate .263 batting average on balls in play and 75.2% strand rate. His 5.26 FIP and 4.82 SIERA suggest he’s actually a bit lucky to have a mid-4.00 ERA.
Considering that performance, his age and his $25MM salary, he doesn’t have much value at the moment. Given his pedigree and the rate of injuries around the league, perhaps some club would take a shot, but the Giants would have to likely eat most of the money for a negligible return. About $8MM will be left to be paid out when the deadline rolls around.
While those would be pretty obvious guys to sell, Webb would be a tougher pill to swallow. He is 29 years old and one of the better pitchers in the league. He would certainly have plenty of interest around the league if the club made him available. However, he is the face of the franchise. He’s a bit of a local boy, as he grew up in Rocklin, California, a few hours outside San Francisco. He was drafted and developed by the club.
He is also signed through 2028, so making him available would be a signal of a much deeper rebuild project. Presumably, with all of their investments, the Giants are hoping to add some young talent at this year’s deadline and then try for contention again in 2027.
If that is the plan, they wouldn’t have a ton of other exciting things to sell. Mahle and JT Brubaker are also impending free agents. Mahle has a 6.04 ERA on the year and is currently on the IL with a hamstring strain. Brubaker is a 32-year-old long reliever with underwhelming numbers. Guys like Houser, Bader, Sam Hentges and Eric Haase are controlled through 2027. Houser and Bader have big contracts and bad numbers this year. Hentges has a 1.59 ERA but in a tiny sample of 11 1/3 innings while walking 23.6% of batters faced. Haase is having an okay year but is a journeyman backup catcher.
Rosenthal suggests the Giants could look to move Chapman in order to clear some payroll and open third base for Casey Schmitt. The Giants have moved Schmitt to left field in order to keep his bat in the lineup but he’s a natural infielder. He could perhaps play second after Arraez is traded but his metrics at the hot corner are better than at the keystone.
Trading Chapman wouldn’t be easy, however. He is 33 years old. He has a full no-trade clause. He is owed $25MM annually through 2030, which means there will be roughly $108MM left to be paid out when the deadline rolls around.
Perhaps the Giants feel that now is a good time to try regardless. Not too long ago, it looked like the aging curve was starting to swallow Chapman. At the end of May, he had a .232/.310/.323 line and 82 wRC+. He has since caught fire and now has a .261/.348/.414 line on the year, which roughly aligns with his career numbers.
Though his deal doesn’t look quite so onerous after that recent hot streak, the Giants perhaps feel it would only get harder to move in the future. Trading Devers or Adames is even less likely because their numbers are worse this year, so Chapman is theoretically their best chance to clear up some long-term spending capacity. Even if they are interested in swapping out Chapman, actually pulling it off would be quite a challenge for the aforementioned reasons.
Time will tell how it all plays out but it certainly seems like it’s trending towards a notably grim summer for the Giants. FanGraphs puts their Playoff Odds at just 2.7% while the PECOTA Standings at Baseball Prospects are even more bearish at 0.6%.
Photos courtesy of Robert Edwards, Kelley L Cox, Stan Szeto, Darren Yamashita, Imagn Images
Giants Notes: Winn, Gage, Mahle, Ramos
The Giants placed right-hander Keaton Winn on the 15-day injured list, with a retroactive placement date of June 11. Right-hander Tristan Beck was called up from Triple-A in the corresponding move.
Winn is dealing with a right elbow strain, though Giants manager Tony Vitello downplayed the seriousness of the strain when speaking with MLB.com’s Maria Guardado (separate links) and other reporters. The reliever could be able to start throwing again in a “handful” of days, as per Vitello, and it doesn’t appear as though an MRI revealed any notable structural damage.
As Guardado noted, even a seemingly minor elbow issue is notable given Winn’s injury history, which includes a Tommy John surgery and an ulnar nerve transposition surgery. His lack of durability was one reason San Francisco moved Winn (once a touted starting pitching prospect) into a relief role last year, and Winn has pitched pretty well coming out of the pen in 2026.
Over 30 2/3 innings this season, Winn has a 3.23 ERA, 21.8% strikeout rate, and 7.6% walk rate. A .235 BABIP has certainly contributed to Winn’s success, but hitters aren’t getting much on the ball when they do put it in play. Winn’s 27.7% hard-hit ball rate ranks in the 96th percentile of all pitchers, and his 4.8% barrel rate is also very strong.
Winn’s numbers were even better before a slump that saw the righty post an 8.53 ERA over his last five outings and 6 1/3 IP. That tough stretch included appearances in three straight games on June 6-8, and Winn was tagged for three runs in two-thirds of an inning in the last of those outings on June 8 (which was his last game before his IL stint).
These recent struggles aside, Winn has been one of the more reliable members of an overall inconsistent Giants bullpen. Beck is up in the majors for the third time this season and is looking to improve on a 9.00 ERA over his eight innings of MLB action. Left-hander Matt Gage also might not be far away from a return, as Gage began a minor league rehab assignment on Saturday. Gage posted a 2.63 ERA (albeit with some shaky peripherals) over his first 24 innings before a bout of knee inflammation sent him to the 15-day IL on June 2.
On the rotation front, Tyler Mahle is slated to begin a Triple-A rehab assignment today. Mahle hasn’t pitched since May 26, as a left hamstring strain sent him to the 15-day IL the next day. While it looks like the strain wasn’t too severe, the injury added to a tough beginning to Mahle’s San Francisco tenure.
After signing a one-year, $10MM free agent deal this past winter, Mahle posted a 6.04 ERA over his first 56 2/3 innings in the Giants rotation. Mahle’s 4.17 SIERA is more palatable and it reflects his .331 BABIP, but the right-hander hasn’t helped his cause by allowing 11 home runs.
Mahle will probably rejoin the rotation in place of Trevor McDonald, who has been a useful fill-in first for Logan Webb and now for Mahle. Guardado suggests that the trade deadline could factor into the Giants’ thinking in giving Mahle more time to right the ship as a starter, as an in-form Mahle is a natural trade candidate if the Giants can’t get back into contention.
Turning to position players, Guardado writes that Heliot Ramos could also be close to starting a rehab assignment. Ramos sustained a right quad strain while trying to make a sliding catch in the Giants’ 5-2 loss to the Athletics on May 15, but after a month of recovery time, Ramos’ baseball activity has progressed to the point that he looks to be nearing some on-field action in the minors. Ramos was hitting .267/.307/.424 with four homers in 176 PA at the time of his injury.
Giants To Use Caleb Kilian As Closer
The Giants have named Caleb Kilian their closer, manager Tony Vitello told reporters before tonight’s game against the Cubs (link via Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area). They had used a committee approach but is moving to stricter roles in what has become a problematic bullpen.
San Francisco inexplicably made almost no moves of consequence to improve the bullpen over the winter. They had one of the better relief groups in MLB for the first half of the 2025 season. They traded Camilo Doval and impending free agent Tyler Rogers at the deadline. That opened the ninth inning for Randy Rodríguez, then amidst a breakout All-Star season. He blew out in September and required Tommy John surgery, making the bullpen a clear area of need going into the offseason.
They nevertheless eschewed all but the reclamation portion of the bullpen market. They claimed Reiver Sanmartin off waivers and added injury rehabbers Jason Foley, Rowan Wick and Sam Hentges for a few million dollars. Kilian was among a handful of arms brought in on minor league deals.
The bullpen was surprisingly effective early on, carrying the second-lowest ERA in the big leagues through the end of April. Things have gone off the rails since then, as only the Reds and Rockies have a higher bullpen ERA than San Francisco’s 5.35 mark since the beginning of May.
Kilian has generally been among their most effective back-end arms. He only allowed one earned run in his first 14 appearances. Kilian struggled in May, punctuated by a five-run blowup at Coors Field to close the month, but has tossed 3 2/3 scoreless innings over six appearances to start June.
The 29-year-old was a Giants draftee whom they traded to the Cubs in the Kris Bryant deal. Kilian was hit hard in limited MLB action between 2022-24 and spent most of last year on the minor league injured list. He has already easily established a career high with 29 2/3 MLB frames this season, posting a 3.34 ERA and 26% strikeout rate. Kilian’s average fastball has climbed to 96.7 mph after sitting 93-94 during his stint with the Cubs. He’s missing more bats as a result but issuing a lot of free passes as well.
Kilian has already picked up his first four saves this year. They’ve been scattered over the past month. It now seems they’ll try to zero in on him for the ninth inning while using other leverage arms like Keaton Winn and Erik Miller earlier in games. Ryan Walker, who logged three saves in April, was recalled this afternoon after spending five weeks in the minors. He’ll pitch more in the middle innings but said his goal is to work his way back to the ninth. Walker was lights out in 2024 but had an up-and-down ’25 season and allowed 12 runs in his first 15 1/3 innings this year.
Giants Designate Will Brennan For Assignment
The Giants announced that left-hander Reiver Sanmartin has been reinstated from the 60-day injured list. Right-hander Tristan Beck has been optioned to Triple-A Sacramento as the corresponding active roster move. To open a 40-man spot, outfielder Will Brennan has been designated for assignment.
Brennan, 28, was a free agent this offseason after being non-tendered by the Guardians. The Giants scooped him up by signing him to a major league deal, a split contract that paid him $900K in the majors and $400K in the minors. He is still optionable and the Giants have made use of that, as he has already been optioned four times this year.
He has performed well in the minors but not the majors, which continues a trend for him. He has been sent to the plate 23 times at the big league level this year, with just two hits, both singles. Dating back to his time with Cleveland, he now has a .263/.301/.365 line in 889 major league plate appearances. That leads to an 86 wRC+, indicating he has been 14% below league average offensively.
He has taken 117 plate appearances at the Triple-A level this year and produced a .364/.393/.467 line and 126 wRC+. That’s propped up by an unsustainable .396 batting average on balls in play but is nonetheless a much more encouraging performance than what he has done in the big leagues. He now has 745 Triple-A plate appearances dating back to 2022 with a .324/.368/.464 line and 122 wRC+, though that is bolstered by a high .355 BABIP.
Brennan has some wheels and could have some appeal as a speed-and-defense depth outfielder, though the bat is more of a question mark. Even when he puts up good marks in the minors, he does so with a low walk rate and generally relies on batted-ball luck.
He now heads into DFA limbo, which can last as long as a week. The waiver process takes 48 hours, so the Giants can take as long as five days to see if there’s any trade interest. Since he is still optionable, perhaps he would hold some appeal to a team looking for extra outfield depth.
If he were to clear waivers, he would have the right to elect free agency but probably wouldn’t exercise that right. Players with at least three years of service have the right to reject an outright assignment in favor of the open market but have to forfeit their salary commitments unless they have at least five years of service. Brennan is just a bit over that three-year line and would have to walk away from the remaining money on his deal if he elected free agency.
Sanmartin, 30, was claimed off waivers from the Reds in November. He suffered a hip flexor strain in March that was expected to cost him about three months, a timeline that has proven to be pretty accurate. He logged 84 1/3 innings with the Reds from 2021 to 2025, allowing 5.66 earned runs per nine. His 19.2% strikeout rate and 11% walk rate in that span were subpar but he induced grounders on 53.6% of balls in play. He’ll be making his debut as a Giant as soon as he gets into a game.
Photo courtesy of Mark J. Rebilas, Imagn Images
Giants Release Ryan Borucki
TODAY: The Giants have released Borucki, according to his transactions log at MLB.com. Borucki is now a free agent and free to sign with any club.
May 31: The Giants have designated left-hander Ryan Borucki for assignment and selected the contract of outfielder Jonah Cox from Double-A Richmond, according to the San Francisco Chronicle’s Susan Slusser. Outfielder Will Brennan has also been optioned to Triple-A, with righty Tristan Beck recalled in his place.
After being cut by the White Sox near the end of Spring Training, Borucki quickly caught on with the Giants on a big league contract. The results haven’t been there for Borucki in his ninth MLB season, as the southpaw has a 4.94 ERA, 14.4% strikeout rate, and 8.7% walk rate across 23 2/3 relief innings. Just when it seemed like Borucki was getting on track after a shaky start to the season, he gave up five earned runs over his last three outings and 5 1/3 innings of work.
As usual, Borucki has drastic splits, as left-handed batters have only a .550 OPS against him this season (while righty batters have a whopping 1.085 OPS). A team in need of southpaw relief help could be inclined to claim Borucki off San Francisco’s waiver wire, but the likelier scenario is that he’ll clear waivers and then be outrighted to Triple-A. Borucki has been outrighted in the past, so he can elect free agency rather than accept that assignment.
The 24-year-old Cox will be making his Major League debut whenever he appears in a game, and Cox will get his first taste of the Show before even getting a look at the Triple-A level. It seems like Cox’s superb performance in Richmond couldn’t be ignored, as Cox is hitting .400/.453/.644 with six home runs and 27 steals (in 34 attempts) over 183 Double-A plate appearances.
Cox has never posted anything close to these numbers in his previous three minor league seasons, and he is surely getting a lot of help from an eye-opening .464 BABIP. That said, Cox’s elite speed has helped him generate large BABIPs in the past, and he has drastically cut back on his strikeout rate to 16.9% in Double-A ball.
The bat has been the only question mark about Cox’s game, as his defense and speed were already seen as ready for primetime. Those plus skills alone make Cox a viable bench piece for the Giants and perhaps a platoon partner for Drew Gilbert in center field, even if there’s bound to be a learning curve as Cox makes the big jump from facing Double-A pitching to big league arms. The Giants rank last in baseball in stolen bases, so Cox should provide an immediate boost on the basepaths.
Baseball America ranks Cox 21st on their list of Giants prospects. Cox was a sixth-round pick for the Athletics in the 2023 draft, and he was dealt to San Francisco in the February 2024 trade that sent Ross Stripling to the A’s.