Examining SF Giants Randy Rodriguez's Viability As A Starter

About a month ago, before the whole baseball world stood at a standstill, there were tough choices to be made in terms of who to add to the SF Giants 40-man roster. The Giants do love to shove in as much big-league talent as possible and every spot in the 40-man roster is made with the incoming season in mind. And so, when the 40-man protection deadline came and went, three prospects were protected. The first two, Heliot Ramos and Sean Hjelle, were easy and logical choices. Both finished their 2021 season in Triple-A and even though the expectation is that they will be spending most of their 2022 season in Sacramento, both will have a shot in Spring Training and are on the cusp of making the big league roster.

Examining SF Giants Randy Rodriguez's Viability As A Starter

The third addition, however, is rather intriguing. Randy Rodriguez was added to the 40-man roster over other notable top-30 prospects like Diego Rincones, Prelander Berroa, and Seth Corry. Picking Rodriguez over Rincones and Berroa is interesting for a couple of reasons. The first is that in terms of the public view, Rincones and Berroa are ranked higher than Rodriguez in any prospect rankings as Rodriguez was a relatively unknown prospect heading into 2021. The second and more intriguing reason is that Rincones performed well in AA this year and to leave him unprotected where a team could pluck his bat out of the farm system.

As mentioned earlier, every spot in the 40-man roster is made with the incoming season in mind so when Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi commented that Rodriguez might not be put on the fast track and might even have the chance to start unlike the trio of Camilo Doval, Kervin Castro, and Gregory Santos in last season's 40-man roster crunch, it sparked a big question in my mind: can Randy Rodriguez actually be a starting pitcher long-term? Join me as we talk through Randy Rodriguez's 2021 by the numbers, what I saw on the film that made the Giants protect him over other highly-regarded prospects in the organization, and answer the question of whether he can be stretched out in a rotation role in 2022 and beyond.

Randy Rodriguez's 2021 Season

Rodriguez headed into the 2021 season without much of a fanfare. I did not have a good beat of his pitch repertoire before but I did see his mechanics when he was pitching in Rookie ball in 2018. I wrote this report on him in my 2021 Prospects Primer:

"While not much is known about Randy’s stuff, he has a good, strong
physique and deception in his delivery due to him reaching back hard in his throwing arm. Would be interested to see his progress in the next couple of years."

To be fair, his stats on the back fields were not eye-popping to the tune of 4.28 and 5.40 ERA in the DSL and AZL respectively, but he looked like have some bat-missing ability with 34 strikeouts in 27.1 innings in the DSL and 29 strikeouts in 25 innings in the AZL. Rodriguez pitched well from May to July where he posted a 3.21 ERA in his first three months with 51 strikeouts in 33.2 innings. However, he turned it on in August and September with a 28.1 inning scoreless streak with 50 strikeouts to three walks compared to 20 walks that he allowed in the first three months. To put Rodriguez's August and September to an even deeper context, he held hitters to a .143 batting average, struck out 48% of the batters that he faced, induced whiffs at an absurd 42% rate, and threw 71% of his pitches for strikes. He also pitched 1.1 scoreless innings in relief in the post-season as the San Jose squad won the Low-A West title.

All in all, Rodriguez struck out 101 batters in 62 innings, pitched with a 1.74 ERA, 9% walk rate, 67% strike thrown rate, 39% strikeout rate, and a 39% whiff rate. What is interesting is that Rodriguez's 62 innings and 1010 pitches this season were a little less than 2/3 of the number of innings and pitches of what top prospect Kyle Harrison threw this season. People might take that as the lines between starting and relieving are getting vaguer and vaguer. A more logical reason is that the Giants coaches want to give as many competitive reps to every pitcher that they missed out as possible due to the pandemic and pitchers are mostly working in more than one inning stints followed with a couple of days of rest. Rodriguez only pitched with less than three days of rest once this season in an effort to avoid overuse.

Rodriguez was also stingy in any at-bat but especially in the late-innings where he usually ends up pitching for most of the season. He is also nasty with runners in scoring position with a 0.85 ERA, a.132 opposing batting average, and 38 strikeouts in 22.1 innings of work. Simply put, Rodriguez was exceptional for San Jose this year as their Andrew Miller-type fireman out of the bullpen.

Why Did Randy Rodriguez Got Protected?

The core of the Rule 5 draft is to try to get unprotected players from another roster with the hopes of them making an impact on the big league roster for next season. Typically, most teams lean on selecting relievers who will be given a shot in a bullpen with the hopes of them sticking around like what the Red Sox got with Garrett Whitlock in last year's Rule 5. There are times where teams will pick a position player in Rule 5 but it is not as common as pitchers as there is a higher shot of success than hitters. Also, signing a position player with big league experience in free agency as opposed to drafting a position player who never had any big league experience at all is an easier decision to make for front offices.

When handing out tool grades, a trend that you will typically notice is that scouts and evaluators will hand out present grades that are above-average or plus to a certain pitch type to a pitcher in the low-Minors but it is highly uncommon to see even average hit tool grades to Minor League hitting prospects unless they are prodigal hitters like Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. or Wander Franco. Even though there is a saying that hitters hit, the truth is you never know for most hitters if they really will hit unless they face legitimate big-league pitchers. For pitchers, however, it's much easier to get a good beat of them mainly because of technology. Do you like a pitcher in the low-Minors who has a great fastball and breaking ball characteristics that also throws enough strikes to save their life? Pop them in Rule 5.

So why did Rodriguez get protected? For starters, Rodriguez has plus stuff. Standing at an even six foot and a bit heavier than the 166 pounds declared weight, Rodriguez can pump fastballs up to 98 MPH with plenty of late life. Rodriguez has plus athleticism on the mound with pronounced drop-and-drive elements in his delivery that has a lot of violence but help him generate a lightning-quick arm speed. His shorter height, his drop-and-drive delivery, and his low 3/4 release point give his fastball a flat approach plane, and his plus stride length adds a tick more perceived velocity. To complement his plus heater is his slider which is one of the, if not the best, breaking balls in the farm system. It has a hard and tight two-plane break that he can execute in any quadrant of the zone. Rodriguez has the confidence to throw any of those two pitches in any count against any hitter regardless of handedness, and he can fill the zone and flash execution with both.

Rodriguez got chosen to be protected because of several factors. First is the pitchers vs. hitters conundrum that are a staple in the Rule 5 draft. Even though the Giants missed a chance in terms of protecting a hitter like Rincones, it looks like the Giants do have a plan of filling out the outfield with big-league talent in free agency once business re-opens. It does open up a massive opportunity for teams to take a shot at him who is a legitimate Top 30 talent but it is highly likely that an American League team will try to snatch him up because Rincones is a bit of a liability in the outfield with his lack of range and I view him primarily as a DH. Bypassing David Villar is also intriguing but unlike Rincones, Villar can actually provide defense in a big-league roster but there is a high possibility that the strikeout issues that plagued him throughout his Minors career could pop up once again.

That brings us to Seth Corry and Prelander Berroa. I think that bypassing Corry is an easy call as his command regressed to well below-average this season. Even though the Giants gave him a bit of a breather in the Arizona backfields to regroup and tinker the issues spotted with his mechanics that helped him finish strong with a positive note, he was out of whack once again in the Fall League. It has been proven that even though Corry's athleticism is an asset, his mechanics are probably too high-maintenance to ever imagine him throwing for consistent strikes in the future, and once picked, there is a high chance that he will be returned back to the Giants in the early-season as a waste of a Rule 5 pick because he is definitely not ready to contribute in the big leagues.

The selection over Berroa is more intriguing as there was a point in the season where Berroa looked like the best pitcher in the system in the month of July. However, when comparing their stuff, even though Rodriguez is a tick below Berroa in terms of fastball velocity (Berroa can reach up to 99 MPH while Rodriguez can reach up to 98 MPH), Rodriguez currently has the better breaking ball out of the two (Rodriguez has a plus slider while Berroa only has a slider that flashes average). Rodriguez also has a better feel for his utilizing his slider (he can work it up and down the zone while Berroa mostly works it up in the zone) while also having a similar fastball feel. Simply put, Rodriguez is more ready to step in a big-league role right now compared to both Berroa and Corry.