Giants Designate Kai-Wei Teng For Assignment

The Giants announced that they have selected right-handers Carson Seymour and Carson Ragsdale to their 40-man roster, protecting them from being available in the Rule 5 draft. They had one roster vacancy but opened another by designating righty Kai-Wei Teng for assignment.

Teng, 25, signed with the Twins as an international amateur out of Taiwan prior to the 2018 season. He was traded for the Giants the following year in the deal that shipped right-hander Sam Dyson to Minnesota at that year’s trade deadline. Teng slowly climbed the minor league ladder with the Giants, though he did so with generally middling results at each level along the way. Back in March, the righty made his big league debut just after Opening Day. He ultimately made just four multi-inning relief appearances in the majors, however, and struggled badly with a 9.82 ERA in 11 innings of work. Command was the right-hander’s primary issue, as he actually recorded more walks (eight) than strikeouts (seven) during his brief stay on the big league roster.

Teng was optioned back to the minors in mid-April, but unfortunately did not see his numbers improve when he headed to Triple-A. He split his time at the level between the club’s rotation and bullpen, with 13 starts and ten relief appearances. Things did not go well for Teng, however, as he was torched to the tune of a 8.60 ERA across 75 1/3 innings of work. He struck out just 17% of opponents at the level this year while walking 12.3%, leaving him with a strikeout-to-walk ratio that would be untenable for any pitcher. Given Teng’s deep struggles, it’s not necessarily a surprise that the Giants decided to part ways with the righty. San Francisco will now have one week to attempt to trade the righty or place him on waivers, where he would be available for any of the league’s 29 other clubs to claim.

More to come.