Years of Hard Work Finally On Display for Giants Reliever Trent Harris

Trent Harris signed with the San Francisco Giants in 2023 as an undrafted free agent and now finds himself as one of the best relief arms on the roster.

Trent Harris delivers a pitch against the Minnesota Twins during the ninth inning at Oracle Park. Mandatory Credit: D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

As you probably already know, the San Francisco Giants bullpen wasn’t a strong suit this past season and there weren't too many arms that manager Tony Vitello could rely upon when he made the call down to the bullpen.

This year the Giants cycled through a grand total of 34 different relief arms, while only 13 of them proved to be better than replacement level players according to FanGraphs Wins Above Replacement.

The team’s relief corps as a staff didn’t look terrible, judging by their 4.14 ERA which ranked 20th in the majors, and their ability to limit home runs to just 0.95 on average per nine innings, ranking seventh.

However, based on how pitcher-friendly Oracle Park is, their highly-ranking home run ratio could be somewhat skewed in their favour due to park factors, including the marine layer and frequent winds.

Looking deeper, Giants relievers struggled with lots of base traffic due to issuing a lot of walks (ranking 23rd), giving up a lot of hits (ranking 22nd), and saving worst for last, ranking dead-last in strikeouts per nine innings.

Their pure stuff as a whole just wasn’t proving to be very effective.

You can’t judge a book by its cover, specifically in terms of the Giants bullpen, because the likes of Dylan Smith, Sam Hentges, Caleb Kilian, and Keaton Winn all put up solid numbers and did their best to hold-down the fort.

Specifically, Trent Harris had himself an excellent season and is now looking to be a big factor of the club’s bullpen heading into 2027.

A Great Story & Great Results

Trent Harris before the game against the Colorado Rockies at Oracle Park. Mandatory Credit: Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Harris has a great story to go along with the excellent 2026 campaign he just finished off, which we’ll touch base with soon.

Currently 27-years of age, he went undrafted out of high school before failing to hear his name get called in the 2023 draft, after completing five seasons of college baseball spent between High Point and UNC Pembroke.

His hard work paid off as the San Francisco Giants decided to bring him into the organization as an undrafted free agent in July 2023.

The right-hander put up excellent numbers in the minors, pitching to a superb 2.68 ERA and 1.09 WHIP across 120 relief appearances and three starts. During the 2025 season, Harris ranked as the Giants 11th best prospect according to MLB Pipeline.

Going from being an undrafted free agent to being a major league club’s 11th best prospect is no joke.

On August 7 this past season, Harris heard his name get called to the show, and made his major league debut the following day at home against the Detroit Tigers.

He took full-advantage of his opportunity and proved to be excellent across 23.1 innings of work out of the bullpen. Harris flashed an impressive 2.31 ERA and 1.16 WHIP while striking out opponents at an excellent 28.7% and limiting walks to a very respectable 7.4% clip.

His underlying metrics were just as good, hence his 2.24 FIP and 2.41 xERA. Batters managed a .230 batting against Harris, but Baseball Savant shows that his expected clip should’ve been a much-better .197 mark.

Something that stands out in Harris’ profile is his elite ability to limit hard-contact while keeping the ball on the ground. He allowed barrels at a stunning 1.7% clip with only 25% of batted-balls against him were considered hard-hit. Additionally, Harris generated ground balls at an excellent 51.7% mark.

Even though it was a pretty small sample size for Harris, he gave everything he had in the tank to prove he’s ready to become an established piece of the Giants bullpen moving forward.