San Francisco Giants 2019 Spring Training Preview: Starting Pitchers

Pitchers and Catchers report to Spring Training this week for the San Francisco Giants! The offseason is finally (somewhat) over! Let’s see who is showing up in camp.

With hand-egg finally over, and NBA getting closer and closer to their All-Star Break, that usually means one thing: Pitchers and Catchers report. The San Francisco Giants will report on February 14th, at their Spring Training Complex in Scottsdale, Arizona.

We wanted to take a look at each position grouping as they come into camp. So this week, we’ll be looking at the battery mates, and next week we’ll look at the rest of the position players as they begin to report to camp. First up is the starting rotation.

The Giants will return everyone from last year’s rotation, and more to Spring Training. Last year’s group sat ranked in the middle of the league in ERA, with a collective 4.06, and limited damage on the long ball, giving up the fifth best HR/9. Can you say thank you AT&T Park?

The one metric where they were hurt in 2018 was the K/9 ratio. They ranked 27th in the league. It could definitely use some improvement, but the A’s had the second worst K/9 in baseball and still won 97 ballgames. Granted, they used their opener method for a significant amount of the season which will likely lower the rate of K/9 for starters.

While they return all of the group from 2019, they’ll also add a few more new faces. So let’s see who all is going to be showing up in Scottsdale on Thursday! We’ll split them into three groups: The incumbents, the challengers, and the long-shots.

The incumbents are the returning guys from last year that are expected to contribute. The challengers are guys who are either new to the team, or new to the camp who could genuinely challenge for a starter’s spot, and the long-shots are likely made up of NRI’s and guys who are there mainly for experience.

The Incumbents

Madison Bumgarner

Bumgarner comes back as the obvious ace in what could be his final year with the San Francisco Giants. While you sometimes want players to ignore the things written about them during the offseasons, you also hope they end up reading them and using them as bulletin board material.

Bumgarner has been the target of many “Is he declining?!” articles this offseason, diminishing his value in trades. Hopefully, reading some of these things lights a fire (we know it doesn’t take much) and helps him return to top form. Granted, top form we’re talking about is the dominant, Cy-Young candidate type of form. His current “declining” form is still really good.

In 2018, Bumgarner posted his lowest K/9 since his rookie campaign, and his second straight year with an ERA over 3. I know, terrible right? Granted a little slip from Bumgarner on a relatively terrible team will show. There is also the “he’s been getting injured” knocks against him which neither have done any damage to things detrimental to pitching. So when we say we hope MadBum returns, we really mean it’ll be nice to see him back in Cy-Young form.

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Dereck Rodriguez

Rodriguez, or “D-Rod”, is likely the most important pitcher on all of this actually. When young players finally break into the scene, the number one thing you want to see is them build on their initial success, and not regress. The Giants may have found fools gold in Rodriguez, and they will certainly hope he builds on what was a very successful rookie campaign.

Rodriguez, statistically was almost as good, if not better than Bumgarner in 2018. In just about as many appearances he posted a better ERA, WHIP, and better peripherals than Bumgarner, including a better WAR. Now, WAR is an interesting stat for pitchers, and may not be good for comparison over a singular season. But there was no denying that Rodriguez was a very good second fiddle to Bumgarner in 2018. Hopefully, he builds on his success for 2019.

Jeff Samardzija

Samardzija was debatable to put into the “Incumbents” spot, just because we have no clue what we’re going to get with him anymore. And it was borderline debatable if he’d even be a starter. However, if he can get back to being an innings eater and perform like he did in 2017, the Giants will gladly throw that back into the rotation.

Samardzija’s 2018 was shortened significantly due to injury. He was arguably rushed back due to the injury issues the Giants had, and was clearly not 100%. He bounced back and forth between the DL, AAA and the MLB roster, before just calling it on the 2018 season all together. The jury is still out on what type of difference he can make. Could he be better suited to be on our list of bullpen guys? Hindsight will have to be 20/20 on this one.

Andrew Suarez

Andrew Suarez was a little inconsistent in 2018, but what can you expect from a guy who was thrown into his rookie campaign arguably six months to a year prior to his “ETA?” In his first full season he threw 160 innings and posted a respectable K/BB ratio. His biggest issue was always the long ball.

Also, his biggest issues came against right handed hitters. If he can work on his approach there, you’ll see him really take off. 22 of his 23 homers allowed came off righties. He allowed a slugging percentage over .500 to RHH, but only a .279 slugging percentage against lefties. That’s probably where his biggest work is needed.

After struggling for the first month though, Suarez found a good rhythm from June-July. But once the scouting report was out on him, he struggled in the second half of the year. If Suarez can make the necessary adjustments in spring this year, we could see a very solid second year from him. But that’s the key. Can he make the adjustments? That’s what we’re looking for from him in spring training.

Derek Holland

Holland was initially a head scratcher for some in the fanbase. And initially, people didn’t seem so pumped about him joining the rotation after the injury bug bit, but then he turned in the best year he’s had since 2013.

Holland will be intriguing here as he might be a good candidate for the Giants to try out the opener situation with, or make him an opener himself. He was usually good through the first six innings of the game, as shown by his splits the first and second time through the order. But the third time through is where he ran into trouble. They could just simply run a 6 inning limit, or two times through the order limit, or even make him the opener. Holland does have the ability to get stretched back out to a normal starter though and that is what makes his versatility welcome.

Chris Stratton

Stratton seems like he might be the odd man out in the rotation for 2019, if Samardzija, or one of the next three guys steps in and does well. It is fluid thanks to the whole “opener” thing looming, but Stratton is who he is. Stratton led the team in “wins” in 2018, but had the worst ERA of those who started at least 20 games. His peripherals don’t show a whole lot more in terms of hope. So what do they do with Stratton? Well he could certainly show up and earn a spot on the big league roster. But he could just as easily end up in AAA to start 2019. So we’ll see what happens.

The Challengers

Drew Pomeranz

Pomeranz is the Giants prized offseason acquisition to date. He was hurt a lot in his final year in Boston, and he’ll very likely jump into either the rotation or bullpen on opening day. Pomeranz is familiar with Zaidi, from his time in Oakland together, and he’s known the NL West pretty well thanks to his time in San Diego as well. Pomeranz seems to fit the mold of a Derek Holland, someone who can be solid through 5 or 6 innings and could easily be paired with either an opener, or sandwiched with another long reliever or starter to help the bullpen out.

Moving to AT&T Park, you’ll likely see his numbers look nice again, especially considering he’ll be leaving the little league parks that they play in up in the AL East. Pomeranz will be a solid acquisition and addition for the Giants. The only reason we put him in the “challengers” position is because he is a newcomer to the team, and it’s still yet to be determined what his total role with the squad will be.

Tyler Beede

I almost stuck Beede into the long-shots, but he’s long been a top prospect in the organization, and the gamble they took on him with the pick and price, he’ll be given his fair shot. After all, his stuff is electric, he just has almost no command.

Beede’s command has gotten worse over time with the Giants, and it’s the main reason he was never able to stick in the big leagues after being handed his debut last year. In only seven innings last year, his K/9 was a solid 10.57. But that BB9 was nearly equal to that number.

A 1/1 Walk/strikeout ratio won’t ever be good enough for the big leagues. He clearly has some mechanical and delivery issues to work on in AAA and that’s very likely where we’ll see him in 2019. Unless something changed in the offseason? But that’s for Spring Training to show us.

Ty Blach

Blach is included in the starters role just because that’s where he’s been his best, however he’ll likely end up in the bullpen if he’s on a big league roster in 2019. Not as much to say here with him.

Jose Lopez

A late addition to my list thanks to the DFA of Josh Osich and the claiming of this man. Lopez is intriguing because he had a really solid year in 2017, moving very quickly and successfully through AA ball, where he averaged a strikeout an inning, had very little walk issues, and posted an ERA under 2.50. But in making the jump from High-A to triple-a in one year, his numbers suffered just a bit.

His ERA ballooned up above 4 and his WHIP to a 1.30. His strikeout rate went down over that period of time. With a lot of the additions the Reds have made this offseason, he was DFA’d leaving the Giants to claim him. He’ll automatically report to their camp thanks to staying on the 40 man roster. He’ll likely start the year in AAA, but could be one to watch this year.