Why Giants stockpiled starters this offseason
This story was excerpted from Maria Guardado’s Giants Beat publication. To learn the complete publication, click on right here. And subscribe to get it recurrently in your inbox.
After letting All-Star left-hander Carlos Rodόn stroll through free company, the Giants opted to take a strength-in-numbers strategy to filling the large gap of their beginning rotation.
President of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi mentioned he hopes the additional layers of depth will assist guard towards accidents and shield the membership’s bullpen, which was leaned on closely down the stretch final 12 months. If everybody stays wholesome, the Giants may go along with a six-man rotation or experiment with tandem begins to raised handle their pitchers’ workloads this season.
“I think it’s really going to be a mix,” Zaidi mentioned in December. “There could also be some conditions by which we go to a six-man rotation for a time period. The disadvantage of that’s you are all the way down to a seven-man ‘pen, however when you’ve got rested starters who’re going deep into video games and you’ve got guys within the bullpen that may throw a number of innings, that may assist mitigate that. I feel there might be instances we try this.
“There will be times when we tandem guys and try to use two of our starters to get through an entire game and give the rest of the ‘pen a day off. That’s something we’ve heard a lot from our relievers over the last couple years. There’s a lot of value — and it’s kind of intuitive, I think — in games where pretty much the entire ‘pen has the day off. If you could have a guy throw five innings and then a guy come in behind him and throw the final four, that’s huge for the entire bullpen. This isn’t a strategy or matching up type thing as much as it is a load management thing and a way to keep everybody healthy.”
Junis is anticipated to shift to extra of a swingman function in 2023, so he appears more likely to open the season within the bullpen as a multi-inning reliever. Wood and Stripling even have expertise pitching in aid, although Stripling mentioned the Giants presently view him as a starter. DeSclafani made solely 5 appearances earlier than present process season-ending proper ankle surgical procedure final 12 months, so the Giants may search for methods to ease him again into motion, as nicely.
The Giants’ lack of upper-level pitching depth pressured them to depend on openers and bullpen video games to cowl innings in 2022, however they’re anticipating to have higher choices at Triple-A Sacramento this 12 months. Sam Long and Sean Hjelle may very well be candidates to supply size out of the bullpen if wanted, and the Giants are hoping younger starters akin to Kyle Harrison — the prime left-handed pitching prospect in baseball — Tristan Beck and Keaton Winn might be able to make the bounce to the Majors sooner or later in 2023.
“I just think back to last year and the strain that it causes both on the field and in the clubhouse and in the front office when you’ve got an injury and you literally don’t have anybody to start an upcoming game,” Zaidi mentioned. “You’ve got to start thinking about a bullpen game or selecting somebody to the roster that you hadn’t really even thought of before. Those things can really be taxing, and to put yourself in a situation where you have sort of lines of defense before you get in that situation, that was part of the reason why we added multiple starters to a pretty full group as it is.”
