The Giants have made a pair of key late-offseason additions to the offense, adding Jorge Soler and Matt Chapman since the opening of Spring Training. They join new center fielder Jung Hoo Lee in an overhauled lineup, leaving the starting rotation as the glaring question.
San Francisco has been frequently tied to top remaining starter Blake Snell, in part because of injuries to some of their in-house options. Robbie Ray, Alex Cobb, Tristan Beck and Sean Hjelle are all likely to begin the season on the injured list. However, Cobb appears slightly ahead of schedule as he works back from last year’s hip labrum repair.
The veteran righty got through a 25-pitch bullpen session yesterday and will throw live batting practice early next week. Manager Bob Melvin told reporters that while the team will be cautious not to push Cobb too quickly, they’ve “probably sped (the timeline) up a little bit” based on his progress (via MLB.com). The team announced a six-month recovery timetable for Cobb to log game action of any kind when he underwent surgery on Halloween.
It now looks as if he could be on track for a minor league rehab assignment earlier than that. To this point, the Giants have kept him off the 60-day injured list — a move that would prevent him from pitching at the MLB level before May 27.
The Giants also provided an encouraging update on Hjelle, who was diagnosed with an elbow sprain earlier in the week. Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle tweets that he’s on track to begin a throwing program in one week after receiving a second opinion. The team had announced on Tuesday that Hjelle would be down for two weeks before going for reevaluation. The injury almost certainly still rules him out of the season-opening rotation mix, but it’s a positive development that his complete shutdown won’t last too long.
San Francisco has three locks for the Opening Day rotation: Logan Webb, Kyle Harrison and Jordan Hicks. Righty Keaton Winn is the frontrunner for the #4 job. He was delayed early in camp with what seems to be minor elbow soreness and is still expected to be ready for Opening Day. Unless the Giants dip into free agency for someone like Snell, Jordan Montgomery or Michael Lorenzen, the fifth spot will be up for grabs.
Andrew Baggarly of the Athletic tweets that former third-round pick Mason Black “appears poised” to take a season-opening rotation job. The Lehigh product was scheduled for his third start of Spring Training this evening, but the game was rained out. He has logged five innings over his first two appearances, allowing three runs on six hits with three strikeouts.
Black, a 24-year-old righty, is not on the 40-man roster and has yet to make his MLB debut. He split last season almost evenly between the two highest levels of the minors. Black combined for a strong 3.71 ERA while striking out an excellent 30.3% of opposing hitters across 123 2/3 innings. He issued a few too many walks in a very hitter-friendly environment in Triple-A but hasn’t handed out a free pass yet this spring. Baseball America recently ranked him the #8 prospect in the organization, crediting him with a plus sinker/slider combination and fine if unexceptional control.
I can see why the giants haven’t given in to Snell’s demands. Cobb was good last year. A panic move for Snell doesn’t make sense.
I agree somewhat, but if you look at Cobbs age and contract this is probably his last season here. Ray can also opt out at the end of the season. 1-3 years for Snell or Montgomery provides a little insurance of a great top end. Long term does not make sense with all the promising young arms that are coming up. One or two look capable of a top end guy.
When Logan Webb is your only proven starter there is no such thing as a panic move.
.500 team if lucky. 3rd and short will be an upgrade over last year. OF and DH may be a wash – see at the end of the season. Pitching is about the same as last year. Last year Hanniger, Stripling, Conforto, Anthony D, Manea, Villar and Bart were the saviors. And then they weren’t. This year the hopes are Harrison, Winn, Hicks, Beck, Conforto again, Luciano, Lee. They need at least five of the seven to be productive or else….
To be fair, DH appears to be a VAST improvement over the last few years
Would not say DH is a vast improvement yet – depends what version you get – 2023 or 2022. Any idea what type of production the Giants got out of the DH spot with all of the platooning they did? I do think having one consistent bat vs 6 or 7 at that spot will help the team.
“OF and DH may be a wash” Not too pessimistic are you?
Last season SF got a -0.6 bWAR at DH, Miami, got a 0.9 from the position. Soler himself had a 1.8 bWAR, a potential 1.5-2.4 improvement. Even if Soler regresses, his average, which is about a 0.6 bWAR for his career, would still be an improvement of 1.2.
Replacing Haniger’s lack of production with Lee, is an upgrade.
But Haniger was a top 50 FA. who was bad due to injury. The Mariners think enough of him to trade to get him back. Criticizing the Haniger signing is great hindsight.
You left Matos off your list. There are expectations that he’ll progress. And, I don’t think anyone thought Bart was going to be a savior.
Last season AZ went with only two proven SPs, a truly bad #3 (worse than anyone on the Giants’ staff), and a bunch of kids. They did okay.
“A championship team already”…So what you’re really saying is the SF Giants have “won the off-season”?…Personally, I wouldn’t go quite that far until I see them play, but it will certainly be nice to see at least one competitive team in the California Bay Area.
Better then last years of season.
I like the team but need one arm for the sake of not asking too much of a group that is down w injuries[SP]. When pitchers get slotted into a position in the rotation they wouldn’t normally be in then you are going up against guys better than you. That actual risk IMO is mental not physical. Confidence is #1 when pitching. Game plan and knowing where its going is a direct result. But when you’re scared you can’t make a mistake you find one. That’s what pitching “out of your slot” can do.
I’m rooting for Jordan Hicks but honestly have no expectations that he will remain a starter.
The Giants will without question add another arm here in the next 48 hours.
Will it be Snell or Monty? Doubtful, Lorenzen or similiar for sure.
I’m hopeful for Hicks. People say he failed before as a starter, but he didn’t really get a decent shot at it. This time he has a full ST to stretch out, which he didn’t have in the lock-out year.
Plus, and I’m just guessing here, but it seemed like the Cards weren’t really committed to the transition. They had him throw a changeup once an inning. Fangraphs did an analysis that showed not a single one was thrown for a strike. Rather than have him change speeds with a different pitch, they just canned the change, and moved him back to the pen. Now he’s added a sweeper to go along with the 4-seamer, and sinker.
As to additions, I think it will be either Snell, Montgomery, or nobody. I think the Giants view Lorenzen, Clevenger, etc. as no better than what they already have with the youngsters.
Yes. I was just that second reading about him re-adding an “ungodly” split finger to his arsenal. Apparently he couldn’t develop it previously during to injury. Healthy now so back into it. Promising read for sure.
He looked good today. Of course someone that sees the worse in everything will say something like, so what, it was only the A’s.
I know it’s spring, it got rained out and he walked three but Harrison’s stuff looked really good yesterday. Im not really worried about him but odds are at least one of Hicks, Winn and Black don’t work out (at least right away). If they sign Snell I think it would go a long way to helping them contend this year and I’d be even more excited to see the 2024 Giants
It did and he only really lost control when the mound was drenched, we all know he’s never going to lead the league in low walk rate. But you are correct in your observations of him yesterday, he was dealing I think he had like 5k in a row and that was with it raining the whole game to that point.
I’m really optimistic about him this season
I think the fact that it looks kind of effortless from the kids hand is a great sign. Granted limited capacity for him, but they are gonna give him a good bit of a shot this season to go the distance, I’d say there hoping for like 140-160 innings from him.
Take a look once again at the Dodgers lineup he faced= absent were Freeman, Betts, Smith, Ohtani, and others. Nice to see him with better control but it was not the LAD “A” lineup or close to it!
To Kyle the lineup didn’t matter.
If you wear the blue I’m shutting down your bat, and you can go sit down now.
Harrison has stuff but so did Beede. Beede had a long history going back to HS and college of giving up a lot of walks. So does Harrison. Look at his HS and minor league stats. What makes everyone think that he will all of a sudden be able to reduce his walks and find the strike zone? I’m not sold on him yet.
Beede never really had any consistent success, his development was all over the place. And he clearly didn’t have what was needed at the highest level.
Beede was never ranked as highly as Harrison. I don’t ever remember Beede even cracking the top 100 prospects let alone being one of the best pitching prospects in baseball. Comparing those two is beyond silly with the only similarity being they were Giants pitching prospects
Giants #1 prospect in 2017, #2 in 2016. #2 in 2015.
The 24 year-old Beede was ranked 88th in the top 100 in 2017, and was unranked the year before. The 20 year-old Harrison was ranked 75th in 2022. Last June he was ranked 14th, the top LHP prospect. Now at the age of 22, he’s dropped to 23rd, at 2 years younger, still much better than Beede’s highest at 88th.
There really no comparison between Beede and Harrison. And it certainly isn’t true that just because Beede didn’t develop that Harrison won’t either.
Ah yes. TGF. Beede comparison now ? What happened to the “new Hunter Strickland” tag you were using ?
I’ll give you some credit. They are both equally as dumb.
I think I disagree with you on this, I don’t think they are the same players at all.
SO/K ratio
Beede (7.8 K to 4.0 BB) 2.13 in 187 innings spread over 4 years This is Ed Halicki and John Montefusco territory.
Harrison (9.1 K to 2.9 BB) 3.18 in 34.2 innings over 7 games, not to say he’s one of these guys now, but for comparison examples, Smoltz had a career 3.05, Peavy 3.12
Harrison is still young, he’s 22 years old and has a better start than Beede did, Beede was 25 years old when he finally was called up and struggled right away.
Two off-days in the early weeks of the season means the Giants need a fifth starter only once in their first 18 games.
And that could just be a call up spot start, or the fan opposed bullpen game. I’d be ok with a bullpen game that early in the season could help relievers get online quicker, as long as it isn’t multiple times a week or multiple times through the rotation.
I’m excited. There’s got to be valid reasons for the confidence in Harrison, Black etc. Schmitt was saying he has been at Papago since Dec. You would think the pitchers in question would have been with him. My hope is the numbers coming from the lab is what is driving the confidence. These are smart people. There’s got to be a basis, as opposed to hope, for rolling with them.
And Cobbs a warrior. Love that guy.
Mason Black comes across as such a great kid. I really hope he goes on to be a solid MLb pitcher.
His middle name is Corn-ontha
Snell should have told Boras to go FH and signed with a team by now.
He’s probably telling him already.
Carson Whisenhunt
Hyden Birdsong
If the Giants can successfully get these two guys to the big club, It’s going to be a top pitching staff in the league.
I saw Hicks pitch today……3 IP, 0H, 0R, 6K, 1BB………he looked pretty sharp