SF Giants will need young starting pitcher to take another step forward in 2026

Young SF Giants starting pitcher Landen Roupp had a promising year in 2025. For the rotation to be successful next season, the Giants will need him to take another step forward this season.

SF Giants will need young starting pitcher to take another step forward in 2026

The Giants rounded out the rotation with the additions of Adrian Houser and Tyler Mahle. They will join Roupp, Logan Webb, and Robbie Ray.

All five pitchers finished with a sub-four ERA in 2025. Interestingly, the projection models are not as optimistic next season. Fangraphs projects this unit to be in the bottom-third in fWAR among the starting rotations in baseball.

If that unit is going to beat its projections, Roupp will be a key arm. In his first full season with the Giants, the right-handed pitcher posted a 3.80 ERA, 3.91 FIP, 1.48 WHIP, 8.6 K/9, and a 2.27 SO/W rate across 106.2 frames. This includes a solid 45.2 percent ground ball rate.

Since being drafted in the 12th round of the 2021 draft, Roupp's career high in innings is 107.1, which was set back in 2022. He pitched at three different minor league levels that season. The Giants want him to get stretched out more to be able to handle a heavier workload.

While Roupp pitched through a lot of traffic on the bases, he knew how to get out of it. He relies on a low-90's sinker to keep the ball on the ground, and set up a double player if are were runners on base.

Roupp leans heavily on a big, 12-to-6 curveball to miss bats. That pitch can steal strikes in the zone, and get hitters to chase out of the zone. More often than not, if a hitter makes contact with it as a chase pitch, it results in weak contact. Opposing hitters recorded a .197 batting average against Roupp's curveball in 2025.

The righty pitcher has always had an above-average curveball to lean on. He has developed a mid-80's changeup to complement that pitch. Roupp typically uses his changeup to give left-handed hitters a different look, and that pitch has become quite effective. Left-handed hitters tallied just a .154 batting average against it last year.

There is a blueprint for Roupp to get major league hitters out. Fangraphs' Steamer projections has Roupp pitching to a 4.10 ERA across 132 innings. The Giants would be happy if he give them that many innings, but they likely see a better pitcher than a 4.10 ERA.

Roupp had a promising first season that ended prematurely due to a gruesome knee injury. That good news is that it was not as severe as it initially looked, and the Giants even left the door open for Roupp to return to the mound by the end of last season.