Every time you log onto the Internet, it seems like there’s something designed to break the brains of San Francisco Giants fans. Take Spencer Miles, someone you didn’t pay attention to until you saw a video like this:
Not often you see a Rule 5 guy (Spencer Miles, from the SF org) throw 99 with movement like this on the corner, while striking out the side. He’s a real one.
— Mike Petriello (@mikepetriello.bsky.social) July 1, 2026 at 1:00 PM
Do you think the Giants’ bullpen could benefit from a reliever like that? I certainly do. Which makes it extra painful that the Giants drafted him in 2022 and let him slip away in the Rule 5 Draft last December. The Giants had a rookie reliever with closer stuff and they just let him get away.
It’s not just him, though. It’s Kyle Harrison. It’s James Tibbs III annihilating Triple A in the Dodgers’ system. It’s half the players in the Braves’ starting lineup on any given day. Every time you turn around, it feels like a recent ex-Giant is having a fine season, if not a career best. Is it possible to build a shadow Giants team, a 26-man roster filled with players who could reasonably still be with the team?
This is an article timed to run on an off day after a Giants win. It is not intended to prove a point or make you angry. It’s simply One of Those Things™ that adds to the dark comedy of 2026. Contained within are names that should make you angry and pessimistic about the direction of the franchise, of course, but any argument that the Giants simply should have run out a lineup of less-than-heralded prospects and other organizational bits wouldn’t be in good faith.
Consider Miles up there. On the surface, it’s exactly what it looks like: a team mis-evaluating one of its own players. But it was also a calculated risk to decline to protect a 25-year-old who’d thrown only 14 2/3 professional innings in the four years since he’d been drafted. Even if another team drafted him, what were the odds he was going to stick all season? If you grumbled at the time, take a bow and pick up your ribbon, but there can’t be many of you.
Spencer Miles threw just 14 2/3 innings in the Giants’ organization after being drafted in 2022, but he’s been a stalwart for the Blue Jays this season. (Duane Burleson / Getty Images)
If you don’t laugh, you’ll cry. And maybe chuck a bobblehead at the wall. Be careful, some of those are worth more than you think. But this is a list of ex-Giants that it’s reasonable to pine for. They’re the ones who got away, and it’s still reasonable to feel like that in 2026. It’s a fine line, and I’m the sole arbiter, but it doesn’t seem like a stretch to lament Kevin Gausman going elsewhere, even years later, whereas Carlos Rodón traveled a much different path. The dust has cleared on the Bryan Reynolds trade, which feels like it was 30 years ago, so complaining about him is closer in time to complaining about Brian Sabean not pursuing Vladimir Guerrero Sr. You get the idea. There will also be random utility players and less-than-heralded bullpen arms included to fill out the roster. Not every transaction needs to be lamented.
It’s possible to create something close to a full 26-man roster filled with ex-Giants who could still be helping the current Giants if a couple of transactional pachinko balls fell the right way, though. There will be fudges and grandfather clauses to get to a full 26, but nothing had to be done with the top performers.
I didn’t assemble this table before writing the above paragraphs, so this will be a surprise to me, too. Let’s see how funny we can get!
PositionCurrentWAREx-GiantWARDifference
C
Eric Haase
-0.1
Joey Bart
0
-0.1
1B
Rafael Devers
1
Dominic Smith
0.5
0.5
2B
Luis Arraez
2.7
Marco Luciano
0
2.7
SS
Willy Adames
1.1
Otto López
3.8
-2.7
3B
Matt Chapman
2.8
Mauricio Dubon
2.1
0.7
LF
Heliot Ramos
0.5
Wade Meckler
0.7
-0.2
CF
Various
0.5
Tristan Peters
2.4
-1.9
RF
Jung Hoo Lee
1.3
Mike Yastrzemski
0.5
0.8
DH
Bryce Eldridge
0.7
James Tibbs III
0.5
0.2
C
Drew Cavanaugh
0
Chadwick Tromp
-0.1
0.1
INF
Christian Koss
0
Tyler Fitzgerald
0.2
-0.2
OF
Victor Bericoto
0.3
Luis Matos
0
0.3
Total
0.2
SP
Logan Webb
2.1
Kyle Harrison
2.8
-0.7
SP
Robbie Ray
1.3
Kevin Gausman
1.6
-0.3
SP
Landen Roupp
0.2
Kai-Wei Teng
0.2
0
SP
Tyler Mahle
-0.4
Field
0
-0.4
SP
Adrian Houser
-0.6
Field
0
-0.6
RP
Caleb Kilian
0.2
Spencer Miles
1.4
-1.2
RP
Keaton Winn
0.4
Tyler Rogers
0.8
-0.4
RP
Erik Miller
0.1
Steven Okert
1.1
-1
RP
Ryan Walker
-0.7
Camilo Doval
-0.3
-0.4
RP
JT Brubaker
0.6
Sam Moll
0
0.6
RP
Matt Gage
0.2
Matt Krook
-0.7
0.9
RP
Dylan Smith
0.5
Kervin Castro
0
0.5
Total
-3
Oh, the liberties I had to take in the making of these comparisons. We’re assuming players like Marco Luciano will be replacement-level, which is no guarantee. I had to guesstimate with Tibbs, with an assist from ZiPS’ three-year projections. I couldn’t find great representatives for extra Giants starters — you’re not really going to claim Zack Littell still, are you? — so let’s assume that the spots would be filled with Trevor McDonald and, say, Carson Whisenhunt, or two different internal options, take your pick.
This is all Baseball-Reference WAR, too, which might inflate JT Brubaker’s value. WAR is an awful way to evaluate relievers. I’m comparing players’ WAR without considering that one’s total includes substantial missed time, which could underrate someone like Heliot Ramos or even Jung Hoo Lee.
You get the idea. This is not a precise table! It is not scientific! I rebuke thee!
It does the job, though, which is to prove that if the Giants simply fell asleep a few years ago (after signing Tyler Rogers and Kevin Gausman to fan-friendly contracts), they would have accidentally built a better pitching staff than the current one. And in this Rip Van Zaidi scenario, I’m not sure why Logan Webb (or Bryce Eldridge, for that matter) would have to go away. They wouldn’t have to be traded in order to keep Kyle Harrison or Tristan Peters. Add all of the current homegrown Giants still with the organization, and the Rip Van Zaidi team has a shot. They have a real shot.
I will leave you, however, with the tale of Matt Downs, a 36th-round pick for the Giants back in 2006. He has a World Series ring for his 29 games with the 2010 Giants, but he was waived in August of that year (to make room for José Guillen).
Cut to 2011, when the Giants couldn’t find runs. If you think you’ve experienced offensive starvation, you know nothing if you didn’t experience the offensive emaciation of the Buster Posey-less Giants in 2011, who had a pitching staff of the gods and a lineup of the damned. This was when Oracle Park was in its peak kite-eating-tree era and while offense and power were way, way down all around the league. It was so bleak.
While this was going on, Downs was hitting .276/.347/.518 for the Astros, playing all over the infield and outfield. He was everything the Giants needed and nothing they had. He was the symbol of everything that was wrong with the state of the team. Then the next season, he was worth -1.1 WAR, was waived and never appeared in the majors again.
The point being: Don’t start chiseling the Tristan Peters bust at Cooperstown yet. It’s funny to remember the players who invoked similar feelings in the past; the Giants faced Jonathan Loásigia on Wednesday, and you should probably be angrier at them for not going after him in free agency this offseason than you should be for giving him away as a teenager.
Still, if you were wondering about the preponderance of ex-Giants around the league who are doing something of note, it wasn’t something you invented. It’s real, and treating the roster like a game of five-card stud would probably have been better for this season, even if there are no guarantees it would continue, and the inactivity would have driven every last person reading this insane. It’s just another “0” on the sign of “Days Since It Was Super Weird To Follow The 2026 Giants.” There’ll be something else to keep the crooked numbers away, don’t worry.