3 random former SF Giants quietly thriving with their new teams in 2026

One of the fun things about following baseball is that you collect something of a mental Rolodex of random names over the years. SF Giants fans who follow the team closely have names living in the recesses of their mind that may pop out from time to time, especially if those names start playing well for other teams.

2026 has been a big year of former Giants thriving with their new teams. Dominic Smith and Kyle Harrison are the two big ones and we have covered their solid seasons extensively. If the Giants were having a good season, seeing Smith and Harrison succeed would be met with good cheer and magnanimity by most fans but with the Giants struggling there will naturally be some bitterness.

But they aren’t the only guys who formerly donned the orange and black who have been impressive this season. There are three random Giants who did not spend all that long with the team who have found some success in 2026.

3 unlikely ex-Giants are having strong starts to 2026 season

Wade Meckler

Amongst certain segments of Giants fans, outfielder Wade Meckler has become something of a meme. Some aren’t even sure if he exists even though he did have a brief tenure with the Giants back in 2023.

He was touted as a potential savior for a team that was falling apart down the stretch and his “video game numbers” down in the minors led some to believe he could succeed at the big league level.

Meckler had 13 hits in 56 at-bats that season and struck out 25 times. He was pretty clearly outmatched by big league pitching and it was obvious he got called up too soon.

He hung around in the minors the next two seasons but never got another shot in the majors with San Francisco. They eventually cut him loose and he ended up with the Los Angeles Angels.

He just recently made his Angels debut and had an amazing first game for the Halos. He hit his first big league home run and also had an incredible sliding catch in foul territory. Through three games he has four hits in seven at-bats.

Meckler is 26 now so maybe with some added maturation he’s in a better position to succeed this time around in the big leagues.

Kai-Wei Teng

Last season, the Giants had to dig deep in their depth chart to fill starts late in the year. An injury to Landen Roupp and Hayden Birdsong’s poor performance left two big holes in the team’s rotation coming down the stretch.

The Giants turned to a number of guys to start games for them like Carson Seymour, Trevor McDonald, Carson Whisenhunt, and Kai-Wei Teng.

Teng had some decent outings and showed some promise with the Giants in 2025, but his overall numbers were not very good at all. He had a 6.37 ERA in 29 and 2/3 innings pitched and that was after he put up a 9.82 ERA in 11 innings in 2024.

Not many Giants fans were heartbroken when he got traded to the Houston Astros, but he has now transformed into a really solid pitcher. In 17 appearances and 37 innings pitched, he has a 2.19 ERA. Teng has worked his way into Houston’s starting rotation and has been strong in his last two starts, pitching five and six scoreless innings.

It seems Houston was able to take his game to the next level which makes one wonder why the Giants were not able to do the same.

Chadwick Tromp

Giants fans may have to dig a bit deeper into the Rolodex on this one, but catcher Chadwick Tromp was on the team in 2020 and 2021. He didn’t do much in San Francisco and after that spent a lot of time with the Atlanta Braves.

He was with the Baltimore Orioles briefly last year but has returned to the Braves and is off to a nice start in 2026 as he has four hits in his first 11 at-bats on the year after recently being called up. He even had a heroic walk-off hit recently.

Baseball is fun like that. Random Giants from years ago can resurface and do big things out of nowhere. It’s easy to be bitter about it, but it’s more fun to just accept it and be happy for them. Unless they do well for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Then it’s a travesty.

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