San Francisco Giants: Kevin Gausman should return for the 2021 season

Kevin Gausman had the best year of his career for the 2020 San Francisco Giants. And the Giants should bring him back for 2021.

Kevin Gausman unlocked something in 2020. He posted one of the best ERAs of his career in 12 games for the San Francisco Giants. And he’s expected to be a highly sought after free agent this offseason.

But the Giants should bring him back for 2021.

The Giants shocked the league by competing for a playoff spot in 2020. After Madison Bumgarner left for the Arizona Diamondbacks and Buster Posey opted out of the season, nobody expected the Giants to put anything together.

But they did anyway, staying in the playoff picture until the last week of the season. And Gausman was a big part of that.

But the question is how valuable will Gausman be going forward? After all, he had some pretty abysmal seasons with the Baltimore Orioles.

But with the Giants, Gausman made dramatic improvements. He increased his K% from 25.3% to 32.2% while decreasing his walk rate from 7.1% to 6.5%. He posted the lowest xBA and xwOBA of his career.

And a big part of that is his increased pitch mixing. From 2018 to 2020, his four seam fastball usage dropped from 58.4 to 48.9. His splitter usage from 2018 to 2020 increased from 27.2 to 42.2. And his slider usage went from 14.4 in 2018, to 1.2 in 2019, back up to 6.8 in 2020. And with the Giants’ analytically-driven game planning, they will find ways to continue optimizing his repertoire.

So yes, the San Francisco Giants should bring Kevin Gausman back in 2021. They also need to make other improvements to the pitching staff if they want to be in the mix again. If they do, I have all the confidence in the world that Gausman will continue to make improvements. He could play an important role in their rotation for years to come as young talent continues to come into its own.