San Francisco Giants Pitching Staff Shines as Season Ends

In a lost season, the San Francisco Giants young rotation has shined bright down the stretch. As the most dominant pitching staff in baseball the past month, the rookie pitchers, combined with Madison Bumgarner and Derek Holland have been a bright spot as the season comes to an end.

A San Francisco Giants rotation that looks to be in shambles on paper, has been one of the best performing rotations down the stretch this year. Led by Madison Bumgarner, who yes is still himself, the rest of the rotation is composed of rookies and a veteran journeyman. Rookies Andrew Suarez, Dereck Rodriguez and Chris Stratton have been very good the past month, and that’s a very good sign for next season.

Looking forward to next season, you have Bumgarner at the top of the rotation, with Dereck Rodriguez and Jeff Samardzija almost guaranteed spots. Other than that, Stratton and Suarez haven’t fully guaranteed themselves spots in next years rotation.

Suarez has been inconsistent all year long, while showing flashes of dominance at the big league level. Chris Stratton started off the season better than anyone in the Giants rotation, then he struggled mightily and was sent down. After working with Ryan Vogelsong, he was called back up and has dominated ever since, throwing the only Giants complete game this season.

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One of the very few bright spots this season has been Derek Holland. Not only as he been extremely consistent all season long, he’s been good. Coming into tonight’s game against San Diego, Holland was posting an ERA around 3.50 over 158 innings this season. He not only has surprised everyone, he might have just earned a contract in the off season.

Looking forward to 2019, the Giants could re-sign Derek Holland to a cheap contract to fill in Johnny Cueto’s rotation spot. Tonight against the Padres was no different from any of his starts this season. He ate up five to six innings like usual, while keeping the team in the game.

Looking forward to 2019, the Giants need to add a lot of offense, that’s very clear. If you look at the money they will have available to spend, they should be allowed to go all in on adding some bats to this miserable lineup, while saving some money on starters.

They have young pitchers who are cheap and controllable and they can slide in and fill rotation spots, instead of shelling out money for expensive starters. Dereck Rodriguez, Chris Stratton, Andrew Suarez and Derek Holland could all be viable options for the Giants next season, and this run down the stretch has proven that.

Next years rotation will almost certainly consist of Madison Bumgarner, Dereck Rodriguez and Jeff Samardzija. With three of those five spots filled, it could make sense to acquire another solid starter through trade or free agency.

In terms of that last rotation spot, Derek Holland would be perfect as a cheap option to eat up innings in the rotation. Not to mention they have good depth with Andrew Suarez and Chris Stratton waiting to fill in as well. Bottom line is, the Giants have to feel pretty good about their rotation for next season, as they have lots of options.