JT Brubaker fit the 2026 Giants bullpen the way a spare part fits a half-finished machine: useful enough, never essential, and easy to overlook once the season was over.
Across 41 appearances and 60 and 1/3 innings, Brubaker posted a 3.58 ERA. He struck out 39 and walked 26, and that strikeout-to-walk mix is a big reason his 4.28 FIP paints a shakier picture than the ERA suggests. In other words, the surface line looked serviceable, but the underlying numbers say he got a little help along the way.
That’s a notable outcome considering how the Giants got here. San Francisco surprisingly tendered Brubaker a contract after he had appeared in only five games for the club the previous season, handing him a $1.8 million deal while non-tendering Joey Lucchesi.
At the time, that was a bit of a head-scratcher. After looking back at what Brubaker did in 2025, it makes more sense why the Giants wanted to keep him around.
In 2025, he threw just 12 and 2/3 innings for San Francisco and finished with a 4.26 ERA. But he also struck out 12 batters and walked only three, and his 1.95 FIP suggested a much cleaner profile than the ERA did. The Giants clearly saw a pitcher who might have been more than just a stopgap.
What they ended up with in 2026 was more plain than that. Brubaker was mostly a bulk-innings arm, working in lower-leverage spots and helping soak up frames when the bullpen needed it. That role is a familiar one for this team, and it was the same basic assignment the Giants asked Spencer Bivens to handle in 2024 and 2025.
Brubaker did get pushed into some higher-pressure situations, too, because the Giants had injuries and needed bodies. He picked up two saves in four chances, which says as much about the state of the bullpen as it does about him.
Even so, his time with the Giants seems likely to end there. He is the club’s only unrestricted free agent heading into the offseason, and it feels pretty clear the Giants will let him move on.
Brubaker’s Giants tenure will probably be remembered for two very different moments. One was his decision to write a Bible verse on his hat in protest of Pride Night, which upset plenty of fans. The other was his spat with both an umpire and Spencer Steer of the Cincinnati Reds, a sequence that helped spark Erik Miller’s outburst toward the Reds’ dugout the next day after he struck out Sal Stewart to end the game and the benches cleared.
That’s quite a resume, even if the pitching itself never rose above ordinary. Brubaker was fine, which is exactly the problem.
He’ll get another job somewhere, because pitchers like this always do. But for the Giants in 2026, he was just there.
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