{"id":545494,"date":"2026-01-30T07:30:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T07:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/545494\/"},"modified":"2026-01-30T07:30:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T07:30:17","slug":"why-astros-giants-made-a-trade-involving-pitcher-kai-wei-teng","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/545494\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Astros-Giants made a trade involving pitcher Kai-Wei Teng"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why Astros-Giants made a trade involving pitcher Kai-Wei Teng<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Houston Astros<\/a> called up the San Francisco Giants<\/a> and came away with an additional right-handed pitcher.<\/p>\n

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On Thursday, the Astros acquired Kai-Wei Teng from the Giants in exchange for minor league catcher Jancel Villarroel, according to The Athletic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Teng is 27 years old and could make a run at a starting pitching gig in 2026. More likely, he has a chance to make the Astros’ roster as a long reliever.<\/p>\n

He has made just 12 appearances in the big leagues over the last two years, but he has a 7.30 ERA in MLB in that span.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0How Jose Ramirez is on pace to become Cleveland’s Derek Jeter<\/a><\/p>\n

He did have a 3.95 ERA at Triple-A Sacramento in 2025.<\/p>\n

Teng’s stuff is legit, with a six-pitch mix that leads to a lot of strikeouts — 89 of them in 57 innings at Triple-A last season.<\/p>\n

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He has walked 25 guys in 40.2 innings at the MLB level, which is part of the problem.<\/p>\n

Teng is from Taiwan, but his status for the World Baseball Classic is not yet known.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Paul Skenes has added a new pitch<\/a><\/p>\n

In return, the Giants got the 21-year old Venezuelan catcher Villarroel.<\/p>\n

He played up to High-A Asheville in 2025, putting up a .699 OPS in a small-sample size at that level after a .746 OPS at Single-A.<\/p>\n

Villarroel was ranked 20th in the Astros’ system by Baseball America.<\/p>\n

It could be a deal that doesn’t amount for much, but Houston clearly wanted more pitching depth, and the Giants got something in return for a player they may not have kept around much longer.<\/p>\n

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More MLB news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Why Astros-Giants made a trade involving pitcher Kai-Wei Teng originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":545495,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2389],"tags":[42,5,1361,135,6954,139,54,3211,72052,865,37588,4,877,66],"class_list":["post-545494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston-astros","tag-astros","tag-baseball","tag-big-leagues","tag-cleveland","tag-derek-jeter","tag-houston","tag-houston-astros","tag-houstonastros","tag-jancel-villarroel","tag-jose-ramirez","tag-kai-wei-teng","tag-mlb","tag-paul-skenes","tag-san-francisco-giants"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115982881771129810","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=545494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/545495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}