{"id":643571,"date":"2026-03-26T00:17:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T00:17:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/643571\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T00:17:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T00:17:16","slug":"duane-kuiper-compares-jared-oliva-to-key-2010-giants-star-nbc-sports-bay-area-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/643571\/","title":{"rendered":"Duane Kuiper compares Jared Oliva to key 2010 Giants star \u2013 NBC Sports Bay Area & California"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Giants officially have released their 2026 MLB Opening Day roster<\/a>, and one of the few standouts is veteran outfielder Jared Oliva.<\/p>\n

Oliva earns the final bench spot in an outfield headlined by Heliot Ramos, Harrison Bader and Jung Hoo Lee.<\/p>\n

Before the official roster release, Giants broadcaster Duane Kuiper shared his thoughts on what he saw from the Santa Clarita native throughout spring training.<\/p>\n

\u201cI compared him, in a way, to Andres Torres in 2010,\u201d Kuiper said on KNBR\u2019s \u201cMurph & Markus\u201d show<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cTorres came in as an invited outfielder, really had no chance of making the team, and he goes on to really, really [help] the Giants win a world championship. Now, Oliva is in the same spot where all of a sudden now, he has a chance to make the team.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd there\u2019s some tough, tough decisions to be made when you carry a guy like Oliva when he really wasn\u2019t on the radar at all. Think about this. Think about having him on the bench, and you get to these extra-inning games where you can place a runner at second base. Not a bad option to have.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 20 spring training games<\/a> with San Francisco, Oliva batted .375\/.444\/.550 and recorded 14 stolen bases, nine RBI and one home run.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had no idea, in spring training, who Oliva was because for the most part, we started calling him \u2018Oliver,\u2019 and we were soon corrected because the kid was doing things that other people on the roster weren\u2019t doing or can\u2019t do,\u201d Kuiper stated.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said to a group of us last night before the game, \u2018When was the last time in spring training you had a player that can change the game?\u2019 And you don\u2019t know who he is unless you go back and look at his background, and you realize that he\u2019s 30, and you wonder why he doesn\u2019t have more time in the big leagues.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen was the last time you saw a player like that have an impact on a team, and he doesn\u2019t hit the ball out of the park? And that\u2019s what you got with this kid, and he plays terrific defense.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oliva was selected by the Pittsburgh Pirates<\/a> in the seventh round of the 2017 MLB Draft from the University of Arizona. The 30-year-old bounced around teams in the minors and spent some time in various winter leagues.<\/p>\n

In his 59 total MLB plate appearances during the 2020 and 2021 seasons with the Pirates, Oliva batted .179\/.220\/.214 with two RBI. Now, as an official member of the Giants roster, Oliva has the opportunity to break out in the majors finally and showcase his talents on a much larger scale.<\/p>\n

Download and follow the Giants Talk Podcast<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Giants officially have released their 2026 MLB Opening Day roster, and one of the few standouts is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":643572,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2290],"tags":[5,30102,81956,59032],"class_list":{"0":"post-643571","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-baseball","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-duane-kuiper","10":"tag-giants-opening-series","11":"tag-jared-oliva"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116292606461201467","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643571","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=643571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643571\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}