San Francisco Giants Spring Training Previews: Starting Pitchers

The starting rotation for the San Francisco Giants could be the largest area of concern heading into the 2018 season.

Last year, San Francisco Giants co-aces, Madison Bumgarner and Johnny Cueto, both missed significant amounts of time due to injury. Although Bumgarner looked mostly like his usual self after his return from injury, there will be far more question marks surrounding Cueto who’s coming off one of his worst seasons in years in addition to the injuries.

Another interesting story-line is who will secure the 5th spot in the rotation. Bumgarner, Cueto, Jeff Samardzija, and Chris Stratton are all nearly locks, but there will be some young, inexperienced arms as well as a few wily veterans vying for the 5-spot.

First off, let’s go over who all of the Giants’ starting pitchers are heading into Spring Training.

40 Man Roster:

Madison Bumgarner

Johnny Cueto

Jeff Samardzija

Chris Stratton

Ty Blach

Tyler Beede

Non-Roster Invitees:

Derek Holland

Andrew Suarez

Chris Heston

Matt Cain‘s retirement coupled with trading Matt Moore away forced the Giants into accepting a shaky rotation while instead focusing on bolstering the lineup and bullpen. Some may have thought the Giants would try to upgrade the rotation this off-season but other pressing needs (i.e. the rest of the roster) as well as the luxury tax threshold which they have maneuvered and connived to stay under got in the way of that.

Despite the question marks surrounding the rotation, it’s worth remembering that the Giants have six pitchers reporting to camp who have all proven to at times be serviceable MLB starters. The main question is: will serviceable be good enough?

Let’s start with the guys who we expect to be pretty solid next year.