Giants lose Caleb Baragar and Hunter Harvey to waiver claims

The San Francisco Giants have been accumulating a good amount of pitcher depth lately, but that depth just took a small hit. On Monday it was announced that left-handed pitcher Caleb Baragar and right-handed pitcher Hunter Harvey, who had both recently been designated for assignment, had been claimed off of waivers.

Baragar will stay within the division, as he’s headed to the Arizona Diamondbacks, while Harvey will head east to join the Washington Nationals.

Baragar was a ninth-round pick by the Giants in 2016, and made his debut in 2020. In 49 appearances over two seasons he had a 2.78 ERA and a 4.17 FIP, with 35 strikeouts to 17 walks in 45.1 innings. His run prevention was always nice, but seemed unsustainable — in 2021 he sported a sterling 1.57 ERA, but had just 16 strikeouts to 12 walks in 23 innings, and got lit up when optioned to AAA, where he had an 8.46 ERA.

Harvey was a waiver claim by the Giants earlier in the offseason. In three MLB seasons with the Baltimore Orioles he had a 3.42 ERA and 4.71 FIP, with 23 strikeouts to 9 walks in 23.2 innings.

Neither player is a big loss, but it is a sign that the Giants are not able to sneak players through waivers as easily as they were in recent seasons. That’s probably partially due to having a better team, and thus waiving better players, and partially due to teams catching on to the fact that the Giants are pretty danged smart, and players they’re interested in are probably worth having on your team.

Baragar and Harvey were DFA’d last week to make room on the 40-man roster for Carlos Rodón and Jakob Junis.