Greg Johnson pours cold water on SF Giants landing top-tier starting pitcher

Everyone knows the SF Giants need to add pitching this offseason. However, Giants chairman Greg Johnson's latest comments suggests the team will not be spending big money on any starting pitching.

In recent comments to the media following the press conference introducing Tony Vitello as the next manager of the team, Johnson said that the team would be very cautious when considering signing a pitcher to a nine-figure contract.

SF Giants chairman Greg Johnson cautions against big contract for starting pitchers

This is not very surprising from a guy whose "break even" comments still reverberate years after he made them, especially with the Los Angeles Dodgers winning their second straight World Series and sparing no expense in pursuit of that.

The Giants are in a position to be big spenders this offseason. They could certainly find a way to make adding a big starter work, but the reluctance from ownership to do so is frustrating to say the least.

San Francisco had four solid starters last season with Logan Webb, Robbie Ray, Justin Verlander, and Landen Roupp, but Roupp got injured late in the year and Verlander is going to be a free agent. The Giants can really only count on Webb, Ray, and Roupp being in the rotation next season.

Perhaps rather than spending big on one starter, the Giants will instead opt for a quantity over quality approach and try to add four or five pitchers who could be starters with the hope that they will hit on at least two or three of them.

We saw them employ that approach under Farhan Zaidi and it worked at times as the team got great years out of Kevin Gausman and Anthony DeSclafani, but they were too cheap to bring Gausman back and DeSclafani eventually declined.

Other years it did not work at all as they brought in veterans like Ross Stripling and Sean Manaea and used them in odd ways, sometimes as starters, sometimes as relievers, sometimes with openers in front of them.

Perhaps the Giants will bring in similar types of pitchers this offseason but will give them more clearly defined roles.

We will see what the approach ends up being, but Johnson's comments definitely seem to pour cold water on the idea of the Giants playing in the deep end of the starting pitcher free agent pool with names like Chris Sale, Dylan Cease, and Framber Valdez.

That will frustrate fans, but this seems to be the approach that ownership prefers which definitely seems to tie a hand behind Buster Posey's back as he tries to improve the team.