Returning to Triple-A is likely the best for young SF Giants pitcher’s development

Trevor McDonald was among the last cuts in camp. While the Pacific Coast League has been a tough assignment for the young SF Giants pitcher, returning to Triple-A is likely best for his development.

Returning to Triple-A is likely the best for young SF Giants pitcher’s development

One of many goals for a young pitcher is to build up his arm strength to eventually handle a full workload. McDonald checked off that box last year, as he threw 157.1 innings combined between Triple-A and the majors.

Overall, the righty pitcher still has relatively low mileage on his arm. He has just 469.1 innings under his belt as a pro, which sounds like a lot, but he was drafted in 2019. McDonald missed some time earlier his career due to injuries and the canceled 2020 minor league season.

While the results were not all that strong in Triple-A last season, some of that was due to an unsustainably high home run rate. That should improve over time. McDonald surpassed his previous career high in innings (101.1 innings) by a comfortable margin. That was an important benchmark.

Far too often, the Giants shuttled pitchers between Sacramento and San Francisco. This not only stalled their development, but impacted to ability to build up their arm strength. Landen Roupp in 2024 and Hayden Birdsong last season were some recent examples of this. Neither pitcher was able to build up his arm strength because they used him on a bullpen role.

That would have been an option for McDonald if he made the Opening Day roster. He made a solid case, as he pitched to a 6.94 ERA with 14 strikeouts and two walks in 11.2 Cactus League innings. The ERA in Arizona is misleading, but he answered the question of whether he could get hitters to swing and miss without issuing too many walks. McDonald’s innings total was sixth in Giants camp, so they were intrigued by what they saw.

For now, the Giants will observe that intrigue from afar. Outside of Logan Webb and maybe Robbie Ray, the Giants have plenty of volume question marks in the rotation. They will need to fill those gaps internally.

With a strong spring, McDonald has positioned himself as one of the first options in case of an injury or underperformance. It may not be how he wanted the spring to end, but there should be quite a few starts available with the Giants if he performs and stays healthy in Triple-A.