Season in Review: Santiago Casilla
The artist formerly known as Jairo Garcia, Santiago Casilla, like teammate Marco Scutaro and bullpenmate Jeremy Affeldt, is now signed to a three-year deal with the Giants starting this coming 2013 season.
After closer Brian Wilson went down, Boch had to decide where to go from there: the hamburger-happy Affeldt, the handle-with-care Romo, ol’ Night Train, or Casilla. In the end, Casilla was given his chance to shine, and he did in April and May. While he struggled in the summer months of June and July, he found his stride again in the last couple months of the season, including the Postseason where he was pretty solid. In his two postseasons with the Giants, he has seen 11 H go by him in 11.2 IP, while only issuing 2 BB and striking out thirteen, eight of those happening this time around in 2012. While a familiar and important piece to San Francisco, he may be one of the unsung heroes of both championship squads (although he wasn’t used as frequently in the 2010 Postseason).
When all transactions have been made going into Spring Training, I expect Casilla to still be the 7th/8th inning guy for Bochy, if Romo doesn’t falter or gets injured. Even entering his age 32 season, I’ll go on record as saying I think the Giants did the right thing holding on to Casilla, although perhaps longer than anyone would have liked, but the market for a relatively healthy pitcher right now is demanding on the guaranteed years side of things, as long as you do not have a draft pick attached to you.