The Giants have churned themselves a teeny tiny bit more reliever depth with their latest waiver claim. I’m typing this up somewhat slowly in hopes of learning what the corresponding 40-man move will be, but let’s look at this claim real quick just to see if it has any added meaning beyond, “Warm body we can torture until death.”
The righty reliever is a six-year major league veteran who turned 31 back in February. He’s listed at 6’5” and 290 lbs, which makes him one of the largest Giants in history
(Sam Hentges is 6’8” and 255 lbs and Sean Hjelle is 6’11”, 247 lbs). He was drafted back in 2016 and was an 11th round pick of the Cincinnati Reds.
He’s had an… inauspicious major league career. A 5.58 ERA (and 4.72 FIP) in 129 innings spread out across six seasons is just not something that measures up to remarkable, let alone “comment-worthy.” So, the cannon fodder nature of the claim is hard to ignore.
On the other hand, I felt the same thing about JT Brubaker being added to the roster late last season. That was a mid-August minor league signing turned 40-man addition and Brubaker had already started to demonstrate useful results following a return from injury. Kuhnel was bought by the Brewers from the Athletics this season and he went from a 4.21 ERA / 3.95 FIP performance on one of the worst pitching staffs on the planet to a 6.52 ERA / 9.30 FIP in 9.2 IP despite one of the best pitching labs on the planet. So, this is not remotely comparable to the Brubaker addition. He’s also due just the prorated portion of the major league minimum and would be next year, too — although, no MiLB options available.
Cost, plus vague major league experience, plus a warm body to replace all the players they’re adding to the 60-day IL here at season’s end seems like reason enough for this addition. But there is one good Baseball Reason for the addition: to see if the Giants’ pitching lab is actually up to snuff.
Because all of those 60-day IL guys don’t indicate that things are going well in the lab or with the pitching coaches for the organization. And let’s not forget that the on-field results have been putrid, too. But Kuhnel’s arsenal is one that would usually be right in the pitching group’s zone of expertise in terms of optimization. Although his primary repertoire this season has been sinker (51.4%)-cutter (31.7%), in years past (he missed all of 2025 following shoulder surgery), he’s been four-seamer plus sinker or cutter. Basically, a fastball-fastball guy.
But!
He does have a slider.
And it’s here that I think the Giants will try to reestablish their bona fides in bringing pitchers along. Kuhnel’s slider has never hit the threshold of the rpms I think they’ve sought (minimum 2,500 rpm), but in the past, he’s throw it as much as 37% of the time. With a sinker that averages 95+ mph, this two-pitch combo has been the bedrock of Giants relievers since at least Farhan Zaidi took over. It’s a statistically consistent pairing in terms of its effectiveness against major league hitters. Now, the trick is… can the Giants’ pitching group actually tweak Kuhnel’s delivery so that his slider hits that 2,500 rpm minimum? Or maybe he’s a perfect candidate to learn the sweeper, given his slider & cutter abilities.
Again, this is almost certainly a warm body claim, but it’s unlikely the Giants will stray far from their belief that a team needn’t spend a lot of money on the bullpen, even after this season’s results. Plus, Kuhnel will be another in their collection of players who are a year removed from surgery, with a slight problem being that the reason why the Brewers waived him was less his performance more his health. It only took a few weeks after claiming him from the Athletics that he hit the IL with a right shoulder impingement.
Keeping pitchers healthy doesn’t seem to be a part of the Giants’ philosophy anymore, so this will be a real test. Can they make a guy better even if he knows he’s, effectively, walking the plank? He’s also another high velocity arm who doesn’t get many strikeouts. He has a career 6.8 K/9. Even with the Brewers, it only jumped to 7.4. For his career, he’s managed to avoid walks (2.5 BB/9), but that 10.0 H/9 is really something. I’m not sure how necessary a 1.39 WHIP guy is in a beleaguered bullpen. Then again, I’m not smart enough to run a baseball team.
