SF Giants pitching prospect quietly had productive season despite mixed results

Before the season began, many SF Giants fans had envisioned that Carson Whisenhunt would debut by the end of this season. That did not come to fruition but it was not necessarily because of a bad performance.

SF Giants pitching prospect quietly had productive season despite mixed results

Whisenhunt jumped up the top prospect rankings last season after reaching Double-A in a successful first year in pro ball. By the middle of this season, he had fallen off of those lists and even saw a modest slide in the Giants rankings.

Performance was certainly a function of this, but was it as bad as it seemed? The lefty pitcher finished the year with a 5.42 ERA, 4.66 FIP, 1.61 WHIP, 11.6 K/9, and a 2.55 SO/W rate in 27 starts for the Sacramento River Cats.

On Sunday, he pitched in the River Cats' finale and put together another solid outing in front of the Sacramento fan base. He yielded just one earned run on 10 strikeouts and one walk in six frames. This was actually a more common occurrence than you might think given the 5+ ERA.

In fact, Whisenhunt was excellent at home for much of the year. Across 57.2 innings at Sutter Health Park, he posted a 2.34 ERA, 1.28 WHIP, 12.3 K/9, and a 2.72 SO/W rate. He also only allowed just three home runs.

This is an important detail. Pitching in the Pacific Coast League (PCL) is a tough assignment for any pitcher, but Sutter Health Park is one of the fairer fields in the league. It is also about as close to sea level as any park in the league.

On the other hand, there are quite a few ballparks where the environment is much closer to Coors Field due in large part to the high elevation. Rio Grande Credit Union Field at Isotopes Park, Smith's Ballpark, and Greater Nevada Field are just some of the ballparks that have an elevation in excess of 4,000 feet. For comparison, Coors Field is 5,280 feet above sea level.

If you are wondering why the Giants decide to send some pitchers to San Jose for rehab assignments, this is a big part of the reason.

Not surprisingly, this turned out to be a challenge for Whisenhunt. The 23-year-old pitcher was a much different and worse pitcher away from home. In 52 innings on the road, he tallied an 8.31 ERA, 1.90 WHIP, 10.7 K/9, and a 2.30 SO/W rate. He gave up nearly four times as many home runs on the road in 5.2 fewer innings than at home.

On the bright side, Whisenhunt continued to record a healthy number of strikeouts whether he was at home or on the road. However, his stuff did not play well on the road at all likely due to the higher elevation. He leans heavily on his changeup and it likely just does not have the same vertical break where the air is thinner.

It was a mixed bag for Whisenhunt in some sense, but he often threw and looked much better than a pitcher with a 5+ ERA. Perhaps, another notable development was that he was able to throw more than 100 innings in 2024 after missing all of the college in 2022 and being limited to just 58.2 frames last year. In some ways, this was a positive season in Whisenhunt's development and there is a good chance that he gets a long look in spring training.