San Francisco Giants: Who was the biggest disappointment in 2019?

Dereck Rodriguez

Written by: Joel Reuter

There were clear signs that Dereck Rodriguez was going to regress from his brilliant out-of-nowhere rookie season.

Plucked from the scrapheap and signed to a minor league deal, Rodriguez found his way onto an injury-ravaged starting staff in 2018 and wound up posting a terrific 2.81 ERA in 118.1 innings of work.

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Below the surface, his 3.73 FIP suggested that he pitched over his head, but even if his ERA moved closer to that expected mark in 2019, he still would have been a solid member of the rotation.

Instead, he struggled to a 5.05 ERA in his first eight starts before being demoted to Triple-A and then relegated to mop-up duty in the MLB bullpen.

He returned to the rotation for the final two months of the season and showed a few flashes with strong starts against the Arizona Diamondbacks (8/15: 7.0 IP, 3 H, 0 ER) and St. Louis Cardinals (9/3: 7.0 IP, 5 H, 1 ER), but overall the season was a massive disappointment.

All told, he tossed 99 innings in 16 starts and 12 relief appearances, posting a 5.64 ERA and a 5.69 FIP that provided little reason for optimism going forward.

After looking like a potential building block at the start of the 2019 season, the 27-year-old will enter spring training fighting not only for a rotation job, but for a spot on the Opening Day roster in general.

So there you have it, our picks for the most disappointing San Francisco Giants players of 2019. Who gets your vote?