ORLANDO, Fla. — The Giants have yet to address their litany of needs during MLB’s Winter Meetings, but the organization has enjoyed a multitude of wins in other departments.
Jeff Kent was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and will likely go into Cooperstown as a Giant. Matt Chisholm, the team’ vice president of media relations, received the 2025 Robert O. Fishel Award for public relations excellence. Brad Grems and Gavin Cuddie, the Giants’ respective home and road clubhouse managers, earned the Clubhouse Manager of the Year Award. Karen Sweeney, who has been with the organization since 1989, won the Katy Feeney Leadership Award, which recognizes “exceptional female employees in baseball.
Along with that laundry list of award, the Giants landed the fourth overall pick in the 2026 MLB draft on Tuesday night thanks to some luck in the draft lottery.
For all the celebrating this week, Duane Kuiper once again fell short winning the Ford C. Frick Award, the annual honor that goes to an MLB broadcaster for “major contributions to baseball.”
The 2026 recipient for the award was Joe Buck, whose father, Jack, won the Ford C. Frick Award in 1987. The other finalists were Brian Anderson, Skip Caray, Rene Cardenas, Gary Cohen, Jacques Doucet, John Rooney, Dan Shulman and John Sterling.
Mike Krukow, the other half of Kruk & Kuip, was not a finalist this year but has been a finalist in the past.
“He’s become a friend over the years,” said president of baseball operations Buster Posey on Tuesday. “He’s synonymous with Giants baseball. Krukow is the same way. … When you have a voice and a storyteller like Kuiper and Krukow, it allows you that ability to still take in the game and get enjoyment just from their relationship, their subtleties. They have their calls. Of course I’m biased, but both of those guys are slam dunk Hall of Famers in my mind.”
Kuiper, 75, joined the broadcast booth in 1986 following 12 seasons in the majors, four of which were with the Giants. Aside from one year with Rockies in 1993, Kuiper has been a fixture in San Francisco for nearly four decades.
Posey didn’t have many opportunities to listen to Krukow and Kuiper during his playing career, but he praised the duo’s ability to call a game how they see it without bashing the players.
“That’s not an easy thing to do because sometimes we stink and you want to beat us up,” Posey said. “For as long they’ve been removed from the game as players, they still have a really good sense of how hard it is to play the game.”