Heading into last year’s Spring Training, one-time pitching coach J.P. Martinez was excited by the prospect of having “15 or 16 legitimate starters” to work with and the overall feeling that — especially with the signing of Justin Verlander — the team had an almost glut of pitching depth.
Depth doesn’t always mean starting pitching, of course, but Buster Posey’s time as a player was during a stretch where it felt like the Giants could get any geek off the street and transform him into a solid arm. That didn’t wind up being the case, of course, and the Giants’ inability to stay out of long slumps contributed to the front office discarded a good chunk of the depth, but here are some guys who threw some innings to varying degrees of quality and did poor enough that we’re sure to never see them again OR well enough that they’ll be counted on in 2026.
Carson Whisenhunt
Let’s start here because, in case you missed the news,
That would be a welcome development in the Giants’ quest to have starting pitching depth, but it’s not as though Whisenhunt’s 2025 debut was a total disaster. Certainly, one could argue that he’s worth an entire profile to himself and one might wonder if the writer of this piece might’ve selected him for that purpose but, due to time constraints, now finds it necessary to had him to this one… we might never know.
What we did learn about the lefty’s 5-start stint with the Giants is that he’s still a work in progress. He got his first two major league wins before Justin Verlander could get his third as a Giant. In both those wins, he was really sharp, handling a tough Mets lineup in win #1 and a tough Cubs lineup in win #2. It helps that the Giants’ lineup scored 12 runs for him in each victory. But from a basic stat analysis, it was hardly impressive: he walked 12 in 23.1 innings and struck out just 16. He allowed 6 home runs and 5 doubles. His four-seamer averaged 92.6 mph, according to Statcast and his 83 mph slider sported a 2,500 rpm. He got swing and miss on his changeup (37.8 Whiff%), but as with his fastball, when batters made contact it was very hard contact.
Major league hitters weren’t impressed by his stuff. His minor league K/9 was 7.9 (compared to 6.2 in the majors) and his 2.9 BB/9 is simply fantastic (compared to 4.6 in the majors). He was the Pacific Coast League Pitcher of the Year, too. So, in the calendar year 2025, it’s wrong to say that Carson Whisenhunt had a bad year. Any season where you make your major league debut and don’t embarrass yourself and then go on to win a major “best in show” award is a good one.
Dominating the minor leagues is one thing, of course, and so it’ll be a great test of Tony Vitello and his new coaching staff to see if they can do that thing of finishing Whisenhunt’s development in the major leagues. Some more of that development might’ve happened in 2025 had a back sprain not limited him down the stretch, but with this entirely new set of coaches running the operation, it’s possible that that missed time might wind up being a good thing, as he has far less to forget from the previous staff’s guidance.
As friend of the site Roger Munter notes on his indispensable There R Giants site:
He enters camp in pretty much the same situation he has found himself in each of the past two years — likely headed to Sacramento to try to pitch his way into being the “first man up” when the big club needs a rotation option along the way.
If that velocity in a 2026 scrimmage is indicative of anything, it’s progress. Enough to win a job out of camp?
JT Brubaker
Brubaker might be one of the aforementioned “geeks off the street” from Posey’s time as a player. 2025 marked two years removed from Tommy John surgery and he caught on with the Yankees for his return. They used him as a reliever in what wound up a crowded bullpen. He walked 9 and struck out just 10 in 16 innings. After the Yankees released him, the Giants signed him, and once he debuted for the orange & black, he was quite good. He had a 1.95 FIP and struck out 12 (walking 3) in 12.2 innings while featuring just a 93 mph sinker.
The Giants even used him to open a game and he gave them 4 innings of 2-run ball, striking out 4 Cardinals and walking just 1. The Giants kept him away from leverage roles during this brief stint so it’s hard to get a real sense of how he’ll do as a reliever going forward, though maybe that’s not the exact role the team has in mind.
He was arbitration eligible this offseason and the Giants signed him for $1.82 million. I have been obsessed with the team finding another Jakob Junis, hoping it would be Tristan Beck or Keaton Winn, but in Brubaker they might’ve found the next multi-inning reliever who can open or serve as a bridge in the 4th, 5th, and 6th innings.
Keaton Winn
“If he could just stay healthy!”
That’s the line with Keaton Winn and 2025 really turned up the volume. He pitched just 37.1 innings across the minors and majors (10 IP in MLB) as he worked his way back following ulnar nerve transposition surgery that ended his 2024 season in mid-July. Overall, it was sort of a mixed bag and one that almost certainly pushed him from the possible starter category into a reliever role going forward.
That’s how Bob Melvin deployed him in those 10 big league innings, and Winn looked sharp there, striking out 9 and walking just 2. He, like Brubaker, was also held out of leverage roles so it’s unclear how his fastball-splitter combo might play when the game is on the line, but in the glimpses we got, it looked like a potent pairing.
2026 won’t be an absolute make or break year for Winn as he still does have a major league option, but it’s going to be a critical one for him as a part of the Giants organization.
Mason Black
The Giants gave him just 4 innings in 2025 but those, along with the 36.1 they’d seen in 2024, were enough to decide that they could use his roster spot for somebody else.
He pitched in just one game — the 4th of July game in West Sacramento — and he gave up 2 home runs while striking out 5.
Steven’s 2024 profile concluded with this thought:
Different speeds, different movements, different locations — the more varying looks the better. That’s what Black needs to improve on in the offseason, and even then, it’s a stretch to envision the right-hander getting a substantial amount of innings
That wound up being prophetic, and in the offseason, the Giants traded him away to the Royals. Is he a “victim” of the previous front office’s plan to give pitchers smaller workloads in the minors to, essentially, “save” their “bullets” for MLB or this just another prospect that didn’t pan out because that’s what usually happens to prospects?
Scott Alexander
I wouldn’t say that Alexander had a great year or even a good year, but I think the veteran lefty reliever had a fun year. It began in Colorado where he got shelled, of course, allowing 11 runs (all earned) in 16.1 innings of work. He was released by them in May and picked up by the Giants on a minor league deal in June. He allowed 8 runs (all earned) in 5.1 innings with the River Cats.
And then Erik Miller got hurt.
This forced the Giants to break the emergency glass and call him up. He appeared in 2 games, pitched 1.1 innings and allowed 1 run, walked 2 and struck out 2. His first appearance of just 0.2 innings was against the Phillies in San Francisco and in holding the Phillies scoreless he helped the Giants come back to win that game in the bottom of the 9th. The next day, he got shelled along with the rest of the staff in a 13-0 loss.
This was Alexander’s second stint with the team after throwing 65.2 innings across 2022 and 2023. You could tell by watching him that the stuff and command were compromised enough that the emergency use case for him would be the only rational way a major league team could deploy him.
Sean Hjelle
After throwing an astonishing 80.2 innings in 2024 and pushing himself into the conversation as a reliable back of the bullpen arm, Hjelle lost a full mile per hour off his fastball in 2025 and that seemed to make all the difference. In 2024, he averaged 94.6 mph, hitting 94.5 mph or better 114 out of the 211 times (54%) he threw a fastball (sinker or cutter). In 2025, he managed that just 7 times in 47 fastball throws (14.9%). He went from a 3.63 FIP in 2024 to 5.20 in 2025. In addition to the diminished stuff, he seemed to have lost control of the strike zone. There was also a significant off-field matter that certainly didn’t pair well with poor performance. It was a tough year for him and it concluded with him signing a deal to pitch for Japan’s Orix Buffaloes in the offseason.
Lou Trivino
It’s odd to think of Bob Melvin having “a guy,” but that’s just what Lou Trivino was. 2025 marked two years removed from Tommy John, so there’s certainly a logic to the Giants rolling the dice on a veteran relief arm who had the favor of their manager. But he had effectively pitched his way out of work in 2022 with the A’s and it was a little surprising that the team would give an arm like that an Opening Day spot. He wound up being as bad as feared, lasting just 12.1 innings (11 games) with the Giants. He gave up 8 runs (all earned) including 4 homers while striking out 11. A 5.84 ERA/7.03 FIP wasn’t going to cut it, of course, but the Giants decided to go with their better options rather than wait to see if he sorted things out.
After the Giants released him, the Dodgers executed a flawless troll of a signing and got a 3.76 ERA (4.12 FIP) in 26 games (26.1 IP). After the Dodgers released him, he signed on with the Phillies and was fine in Philadelphia, too: 2.00 ERA in 9 IP with 8 K 5 BB 3 R (2 ER) and 0 home runs allowed.