© Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports
One of the major puzzles left for the Giants to solve before heading down to Southern California to face the Los Angeles Dodgers on Opening Day, is who will round out their rotation next season. If everything goes as planned, the Giants will once again have Madison Bumgarner, Johnny Cueto, and Jeff Samardzija leading the rotation, but it’s yet to be determined whether Ty Blach, Chris Stratton, Tyler Beede, or Andrew Suarez will assume the fourth and fifth starting spots.
Yet, who’s to say the Giants won’t use them all?
While making an appearance on Murph & Mac Monday morning, Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic suggested that the Giants could cycle those young pitchers through the back end of the rotation, while also giving them occasional stints in the bullpen.
“I think they’re looking to be a little less traditional when it comes to the back end of the rotation,” Baggarly said. “I don’t know if we think of it as, ‘who’s your four? Who’s your five? Ok, pencil in Chris Stratton. Ok, pencil in Ty Blach.’ They’re going to have a lot of guys with options, including those guys, and Andrew Suarez and Tyler Beede.”
For years, the Giants have prided themselves in their starting pitching, which played a key role in each of their three championship runs. While that mindset lives on through the heavy workloads of Bumgarner, Cueto, and Samrdzija, who led the National League with 207.2 innings pitched last season, Baggarly believes they’ll be willing to adapt to the modern pitching trends in the back end of their rotation.
“The trend is going the other way in baseball,” Baggarly said. “You had Jeff Samardzija lead in the NL with 207 innings last year. That’s the fewest number of innings to lead the league in major league history. The Giants would love to get 200-plus innings from those three guys again and if they’re the only 200-plus inning guys in the league, so be it.”
While some might be nervous about the Giants’ lack of proven arms in the fourth and fifth spots in the rotation, what Baggarly is suggesting could serve as a beneficial way to break these young pitchers into full-time starting roles the major leagues. Although Stratton and Blach both have at least 10 game with the Giants under their belts, Beede and Suarez have yet to make their major league debuts and none have put in a full workload as a starter.
“I think you’re going to see that fourth and fifth, amorphous is a great word,” Baggarly said. “I think for the back end of that bullpen, a lot of guys have options and can be shuttled up and down. Maybe send a starter out after a start, skip him the next time you have an off day, bring up a fresh reliever. I think we’re going to see a lot of that because we know you almost have to have a taxi-squad when it comes to pitching these days.”
To listen to the full interview check out the podcast below, and skip to 6:39 for Baggarly on Giants.