Kris Bryant trade just came full circle on his birthday in surreal fashion

Time is a flat circle.
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These days, when Kris Bryant is in the news, sadly, it's due more to his ongoing back issues than anything he's doing on the field. The seven-year, $182 million deal he signed with the Colorado Rockies ahead of the 2022 season is already cemented as one of the biggest free-agent busts in baseball history - a disappointing turn of events for a guy who brightly burst onto the scene as the face of the Chicago Cubs more than a decade ago.

When Jed Hoyer, in his first year as Chicago's president of baseball operations, traded Bryant (along with pretty much anything else of value that wasn't bolted to the floor) in July 2021, the fanbase was ready to run him out of town. The Cubs sent the former NL Rookie of the Year and MVP to the San Francisco Giants in exchange for prospects Alexander Canario and Caleb Kilian - neither of whom wound up making a significant impact in a Cubs uniform.

Caleb Kilian re-joins the Giants as Kris Bryant's health woes continue

Just this week, it was announced Canario is headed to Japan to join the Seibu Lions - telling you how well his big-league career has progressed. And in a full-circle moment, on Sunday, Jeff Young of Around The Foghorn, reported Kilian is heading back to the Giants on a minor-league deal, bringing the right-hander back to the organization that initially drafted him back in 2019 out of Texas Tech.

Kilian hasn't appeared in an MLB game since 2024 and spent much of that season on the shelf with a teres major strain. Last year, the Cubs released him in mid-April, only to re-sign him to a minor-league deal days later. He made just 11 appearances with South Bend and Iowa, struggling to a 7.47 ERA in 15 2/3 innings of work.

Injuries have really taken a toll on Kilian and he's got to be looking just to prove he's fully healthy heading into his age-29 season. He's got only 27 1/3 big-league innings to his credit so it's safe to say the Giants probably aren't hoping for anything dramatic from him. Similar to the flyers that Hoyer and the Cubs make every winter, this is a buy-low move from Buster Posey, hoping that, just maybe, he can start to get things back on track in 2026.

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