San Francisco Giants: Too early to worry about starting rotation
By Tim Haberin
Several San Francisco Giants starters have been roughed up this spring, but that shouldn’t deter the team or its fans.
If you’ve followed the San Francisco Giants this spring, you’ll know that things haven’t been going so well for the team’s starting pitchers. As Andrew Baggarly of the San Jose Mercury News noted yesterday, four hurlers in particular have been knocked around thus far in Cactus League action.
Madison Bumgarner, Johnny Cueto, Jeff Samardzija and Jake Peavy have posted a combined 9.29 ERA in 11 spring starts, together serving up a whopping 55 hits in 31 innings. Spring Training results typically aren’t given much stock, but the Giants and their fans can’t be too happy with those numbers.
It’s easy to brush Bumgarner’s struggles (4 ER in 5 IP) off as an early aberration. The hero of the 2014 World Series is coming off his second straight 18-win, sub-3.00 ERA season and at age 26 is a safe bet to contend for the Cy Young again.
Each of his rotation mates have legitimate question marks, however. Cueto, who is apparently fine after recently taking a liner off his head, turned in a very erratic performance for the Royals last year after his midseason trade to Kansas City, extending into the postseason.
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Cueto posted a 4.76 ERA in 81.1 regular season innings for the eventual champions, well off his career average. San Francisco inked him to a six-year, $130 million deal over the winter in hopes that he would look more like the pitcher who tossed a complete game one-run gem in Game 2 of the World Series moving forward.
The club made Samardzija another well-paid free agent during the offseason, signing him to a five-year, $90 million deal. That’s not a bad payday considering the big right-hander had just finished the worst full season of his eight-year big league career. The man dubbed “Shark” stumbled to a 4.96 ERA (79 ERA+) in 32 outings for the White Sox. Though he contributed 214 innings to the South Siders’ cause, he also gave up a league-most 228 hits, 118 earned runs and 29 homers in that span. Ouch.
The preseason hasn’t been much kinder, as Samardzija surrendered three more long balls in the third inning of his start yesterday.
Peavy put up respectable numbers in 19 starts last season, managing a 3.58 ERA in 110.2 frames. Nevertheless, as the 14-year veteran nears his 35th birthday, it’s not unreasonable to wonder whether he can stay healthy and maintain that level of production over a complete season in 2016.
The Giants do have some factors in their favor as they attempt to get their rotation on the right track before Opening Day. For one thing, AT&T Park consistently rates as one of the best venues in the league in which to pitch. In 2015, only 84.5 runs were scored there for every 100 in a league average park, and just 59.9 home runs for every 100 hit elsewhere. Both were the lowest figures among ballparks last year by significant margins.
If Cueto and Samardzija want to bounce back, they would be hard-pressed to find a better place to do it than San Francisco. Despite a largely disappointing campaign, Giants starters last year still finished just outside the top third of the league in ERA with an overall mark of 3.95.
San Francisco Giants
There is also the question of determining the staff’s fifth starter. It seems like Matt Cain will get a chance to hold onto the job, but injuries have limited him to 28 appearances over the last two seasons. His performance in that time (4.83 ERA in 151 IP) has also been well below his earlier standards. Offseason surgery to remove a cyst has delayed Cain’s first spring outing to this Friday, so his availability for the start of the regular season isn’t exactly a sure thing at the moment.
That could create an intriguing opportunity for 27-year-old Chris Heston, who most fans will likely remember from his no-hitter last season. The right-hander enjoyed a solid rookie campaign, nabbing 12 wins and posting a 3.95 ERA in 177.2 innings. If he can work on getting the walks down a bit (3.2 BB/9) and avoid plunking so many batters (league-high 13 HBP) he could be a pitcher to watch this year. He’s having a good spring so far, allowing three runs on five hits in 8.2 total frames.
As Baggarly points out, the Giants spent a lot of money this offseason to shore up their rotation, but still have a fair amount of uncertainty to show for their efforts. Fortunately, there are still two weeks to go until the start of the regular season, time enough for the staff to straighten things out.
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With a talent like Bumgarner leading the way, it’s difficult to be too pessimistic about this group. Cueto could certainly regain his Reds form back in the NL, and Samardzija would only need to be a serviceable number-three. The Giants will hope for those scenarios to come to fruition as they face another season in a tough division.