The Giants made a couple of additions to the pitching staff this week. They signed reliever Jason Foley and reportedly have an agreement in place with starter Adrian Houser. Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle reports that the Giants are still in the market for pitching additions, both in the rotation and the bullpen.
That’s not especially surprising. Foley is recovering from shoulder surgery and is expected to start the season on the injured list. The bullpen was a strength for San Francisco in 2025 but they traded Camilo Doval and Tyler Rogers at the deadline. Randy Rodríguez required Tommy John surgery in September. Joey Lucchesi was non-tendered last month. The Giants have subsequently signed Sam Hentges and Foley but that’s not going to make up for what they’ve lost.
In the rotation, Justin Verlander became a free agent at season’s end. The Houser signing will make up for that loss to some degree but the Giants will understandably want to do more. The club’s rotation had a collective 4.10 ERA this year, putting them 17th among big league teams. As of now, Logan Webb and Robbie Ray are the front two. Houser and Landen Roupp should have two more spots spoken for.
That leaves one spot for a group consisting of Kai-Wei Teng, Carson Whisenhunt, Blade Tidwell, Trevor McDonald, Carson Seymour, Hayden Birdsong and Keaton Winn. That’s a lot of arms and they all have their varying levels of appeal but no one in that group is fully established as a viable big leaguer. Each of them has less than 108 big league innings and they can all still be optioned to the minors.
The club might want to leave a path open for one guy in that group to separate himself from the pack but that should happen anyway. No team gets through a full season these days without a few notable injuries on the pitching staff. Even if the Giants start the season with those guys all blocked from a rotation gig, there will be opportunities throughout the campaign.
The question will be how aggressive they plan on being in upgrading the rotation. Chairman/owner Greg Johnson and general manager Zack Minasian have both suggested the Giants would prefer to avoid long-term deals for pitchers.
The top end of the free agent pitching market is one area that has moved fairly slowly. Dylan Cease was quickly snapped up by the Blue Jays but Tatsuya Imai, Framber Valdez, Ranger Suárez, Zac Gallen and Michael King are all still available. Despite the club’s apparent preference to avoid lengthy deals, they have nonetheless been connected to Valdez and Gallen, so perhaps there is a scenario where they get involved there. If they go for another signing in line with their Houser deal, guys like Zack Littell, Chris Bassitt and Nick Martinez are out there.
There is also the trade market to consider. If the Giants want to avoid lengthy free agent deals, they could pursue guys like MacKenzie Gore of the Nationals, Kris Bubic of the Royals, Edward Cabrera of the Marlins, Kodai Senga of the Mets, Mitch Keller of the Pirates or many others.
Those guys have varying degrees of trade value. For instance, Bubic shouldn’t be too costly since he is a rental and finished 2025 on the injured list. Gore, on the other hand, pitched like an ace for much of this year and is still cheaply controlled for two seasons. The Giants are reportedly willing to consider trading prospect Bryce Eldridge. That doesn’t mean that they will actually move him but perhaps a notable trade is possible.
RosterResource currently pegs the Giants for a payroll of $180MM and a competitive balance tax figure of $203MM next year. It’s unclear where they want to end up but they are more than $40MM shy of the base threshold of the tax, which will be $244MM next year.
They are also on the lookout for upgrades at second base and the outfield. Whatever spending capacity they do have, they probably won’t dedicate all of it to pitching, but they could also address some of their other targets via the trade market. They are reportedly one of the frontrunners for the Cardinals’ Brendan Donovan, alongside the Mariners.
Photo courtesy of Robert Edwards, Imagn Images
Go get Henry rowengarter!!
Throw em the high, stinky, LIMBURGER!
Framber
Of course the Giants need pitching. They can’t line up against Yamamoto, Snell, Ohtani, Glasnow, and Sasaki.
Adding Houser for 2/$22M to face the Dodgers lineup isn’t going to be a winning strategy.
Adhames, Chapman, Devers, Ramos, potentially Eldridge? Webb.
Granted Yamamoto and Ohtani are elite. Snell and Glasnow couldn’t pitch most of the season and were less than effective in the playoffs.
Sasaki isn’t even worth mentioning since, well just look up his 2025 stats.
I get what you are saying. But the Giants didn’t win 3 World Series with flashy names and stats.
Getting your ticket to the postseason changes everything.
= Ray, Ramos, Roupp is potentially a rising star. Houser is a good pickup for the 4th-5th slot in the rotation.
Sadly, I doubt they do anything this off season that really moves the needle. Oh well … maybe in a few years, they’ll finally develop a better farm system and they can splurge when their future youngsters are up at the Big Show and producing.
Apparently you’re a fan of another team that doesn’t follow the Giants closely.
I just love that the default Giants news picture is Buster Posey smiling, looking like a girl dad watching his kid win an award.
That smirk says, just getting started guys.
Keaton Winn makes the list of hopefuls ! Good work, Darragh.
Bit of a forgotten man for the Giants.
I’ll hook up all the pitchers with some gear. Get them on that good cycle. Let’s go!! I love being on roids
I think you have a problem Robbie Ray.
This just in! The Giants are still interested in pitching, even after some notable reclamation project signings in their bullpen and adding a new starting pitcher, resulting in a downgrade of their rotation from last year.
Relax. Verlander could still resign.
Giants should trade for Jesus Luzardo and Nick Castellanos.
Luzardo projected to make $10M in final year of arb and Nick $20M; together, they almost cancel out the surplus value/negative value of their contracts.
With no salary relief Giants can send a decent package; they send more with more salary relief.
Philly wants Castellanos gone anyway. They turn around and sign a top tier pitcher or step down to next tier. Everybody wins.
Your welcome.
Would love it if the Giants got Luzardo, but the Phillies are definitely not trading him. They have WS aspirations. Why would they move an important piece of the rotation that’s also cheap. Especially since Wheeler’s TOS surgery makes him a bit of a question mark, and Ranger is a FA.
Plus, I hope the Giants want absolutely nothing to do with Castellanos. He’s one of the worst RFers in MLB, and 1B and DH are locked up. Even his bat hasn’t been good. He’s been league average for the last 4 years, and worst than that last season (88 OPS+). I think the Phillies would have trouble giving him away.
Question, Do you know how long teams can hold out on a roster move after making agreements with free agents ?
Cards sitting on 4 days with Dustin May.
The roster move has to be made when the acquisition becomes official, and I think that’s when the team, or teams in case of a trade, make the announcement.
I don’t know if there’s a deadline for that, but I don’t think there is. If you think back to the Carlos Correa drama from a couple years ago, it seemed like weeks after the initial agreement that they decided to move on. And never having made the announcement, the signing never became official.
In case of the free agent then it’s probably communicated at time of the agreement. We’ll get you onboard but might be a few days to make room for you. I assume other offers can still be made / accepted until made official.
Actually I think once a guy accepts an offer he’s provisionally committed to that team. So no, I don’t think other offers can, or will be made, even though it isn’t official yet. I think the player would have to withdraw from the initial agreement to field new offers, which he could do since nothing is official yet.
And that’s the other side of what happened with Correa, when it was the team that withdrew from the provisional agreement. Though both the Giants and Mets withdrew from agreements, I can’t remember a player doing so.
If that’s the case then there should be a time limit. Waiting a week or more in limbo would not sit well with me, but I guess it rarely happens.
I can understand not wanting to go 7 years on a guy like Cease who’s signed through he age 37 season. MLBTR, which correctly predicted 7 years for Cease, also predicted 5 years for Framber Valdez and Ranger Suarez, and 4 for Zac Gallen.
It seems to me Suarez would be reasonable for the Giants. If they gave him 5 years that deal would run through his age 34 season. Framber at 5 would run through his age 36 season. Though I’d be happier with either over Gallen and the predicted 4 years., even though that length only goes through his age 33 season.
It’s December and most of the big arms are still available… So, whatever gunk Giants fans are slinging at the front office, just keep in mind that it’s early in the process and that just about all the teams are still figuring out their offseasons.
Houser was a sneaky good pickup. He’s not supplanting Webb as the ace or anything, but he’s a solid #3 or #4. If they get a Framber or Gallen, then the Houser signing looks even better.
A month from now, the Giants could have Framber in the rotation, Brendan Donovan manning second, and the fans convincing themselves of an imminent Luis Matos breakout. And it’ll still be January.
Just give up Eldridge and trade for someone. Devers is in his spot anyway. From what I understand we drew No. 4 in the draft and are locks for one of the top international guys. He will be replaced in no time.
I’m not totally against trading Eldridge, but if they do, I’d want it to be in a package for someone like Skubal. I’d rather they have the problem of where to play him, than trade him away for less than his value.
That would do. I’m also liking the Gore and Abrams for a package starting with Eldridge
Eldridge, pick one of the two teen SS prospects, and an AA arm.
I would be good with that.
I’d go King and Bassit
Giants need more prospects trade Robbie ray then go sign framber or another pitcher.
Growing increasingly pessimistic this offseason will be one to celebrate.
Why suddenly no mention of the likelihood of adding Scherzer to the back of the rotation? Probably good for 120 IP and SF should have 6-7 SPs in play.