Pirates’ Camilo Doval misfire somehow looks even worse after one Giants appearance

The Camilo Doval trade already looked bad for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Somehow, it took exactly one inning with the San Francisco Giants for it to look worse.

Pittsburgh acquired Doval from the New York Yankees on Aug. 1, sending catcher Omar Alfonzo and outfielder Luis Cruz to New York for the former All-Star reliever and cash considerations. Alfonzo was Pittsburgh's No. 17 prospect according to MLB Pipeline at the time of the deal.

Less than two months later, the Pirates designated Doval for assignment. Two days after that, the Giants claimed him off waivers for nothing. And in Doval's first appearance back in San Francisco? He struck out Mookie Betts, Shohei Ohtani and Dalton Rushing in order.

Doval needed only 16 pitches to strike out the side against the Dodgers. He topped out at 99.5 mph, leaned heavily on his slider and looked remarkably similar to the pitcher who once developed into an All-Star closer in San Francisco.

One inning doesn't suddenly mean the Pirates made some catastrophic mistake by DFA'ing a future Hall of Famer. Doval was genuinely inconsistent in Pittsburgh. In 20 appearances covering 19 innings, he posted a 3.79 ERA and issued an alarming 14 walks. The Pirates weren't getting the dependable late-inning weapon they thought they were acquiring. That makes the fact that they traded actual prospect capital for him even more maddening.

When Pittsburgh acquired Doval, the organization believed there were mechanical and pitch-mix adjustments that could help him rediscover the pitcher who saved 39 games for the Giants in 2023. The Pirates viewed him as a project with power stuff that their pitching group could potentially unlock.

Instead, they couldn't get consistent results from him, gave up less than eight weeks later and lost him for nothing. Then San Francisco put him on a mound and immediately got three strikeouts against the top of the Dodgers' order. That's brutal optics regardless of what happens next.

After bouncing among organizations and working with four different pitching groups over the last two seasons, Doval talked about getting back to what made him successful in the first place. His message was essentially that all of the tinkering hadn't helped.

“I’ve realized that you always have to be yourself,” Doval said after Saturday's outing. He explained that trying to change the way he pitched contributed to his inconsistency.

That's quite a quote considering the Pirates explicitly acquired him believing they could tweak him.

The Giants, meanwhile, were already talking about increasing Doval's slider usage before he even made his return appearance. Pitching coach Justin Meccage — who just so happens to be the former Pirates bullpen coach they fired in 2024 — described Doval's stuff as “electric,” and Doval has made clear that San Francisco is where he wants to remain.

Pirates Camilo Doval gamble was bad enough on its own, but the Giants made it worse

Again, we're talking about one inning. Doval could walk three batters the next time he pitches. His control issues didn't magically disappear because he put a Giants jersey back on. But judging the Pirates' decision doesn't require pretending Doval has suddenly been fixed forever. The process was bad enough on its own.

Pittsburgh traded two prospects for a reliever it believed it could improve. The Pirates weren't able to improve him enough to trust him. They couldn't preserve any value by trading him again. They didn't even keep him through the end of the season to see whether something clicked. They DFA'd him, and another organization simply picked him up.

San Francisco originally traded Doval to the Yankees in 2025 and received four prospects. Fourteen months later, the Giants got Doval back without surrendering a player. In between, the Pirates became the organization that actually paid prospect capital to rent him for 20 appearances.

And then they had to watch his first inning back home consist of Betts, Ohtani and Rushing walking back to the dugout one after another.

Maybe Doval's Giants reunion amounts to nothing. But either way, the Pirates already lost this transaction. If San Francisco actually manages to rediscover the old Camilo Doval, it'll just determine how much worse the loss becomes.

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