Saturday, March 12, 2016

Giants turn to New Trio for 2016 Success

With the temperatures starting to heat up and baseball's Spring Training officially underway, it's time to dust off those ball caps and mark our calendars for Opening Day. And with it being another even year, who could be more excited for baseball than Giants fans? In what he's calling possibly the greatest starting rotation assembled during his tenure with the ball club, Giants skipper Bruce Bochy has to like his team's chances at making it yet another successful even numbered year.

With pitching being the formula in all three of the Giants' World Series runs, the team's front-office once again focused on making starting pitching a priority over the offseason. While it was the division-rival Arizona Diamondbacks who won the sweepstakes for the top free-agent on the market in Zack Greinke, the Giants went with the adage that two is better than one, signing two of the top five pitchers available in righties Jeff Samardzija and Johnny Cueto. Samardzija was first to land with the G-Men after their failed attempt to add Greinke, making the former star receiver for the Notre Dame football team seem like a consolation prize, agreeing to a 5-year, $90 Million dollar deal. He would be joined by the coveted arm of Johnny Cueto just days later, who inked a 6-year, $130 Million dollar contract. The tandem of Cueto and Samardzija helps stabilize a Giants pitching staff that outside of ace Madison Bumgarner and rookie Chris Heston who showed flashes of brilliance, struggled mightily all season in 2015.
Samardzija struggled in his first full season in the American League last year while with the Chicago White Sox where he finished with an 11-13 record and an ERA of 4.96 in 32 starts. Having coined the nickname "Shark", AL hitters took a bite out of Samardzija in 2015 as he surrendered a league-high 29 home runs and allowed the most hits (228) and earned runs (118). All of which are numbers Samardzija should definitely rebound from in 2016 by simply playing his home games at the pitcher-friendly confines of AT&T Park alone. Not to mention he'll have one of the better pitch-framing catchers behind the dish in Buster Posey and a much improved defense fielding behind him to go along with the teachings of veteran pitching coach Dave Righetti. Since making the switch from a reliever to a starter in 2012, the 31-year old Samardzija has tossed the 10th-most innings in baseball with 822 and is one of only three pitchers to log at least 210 innings in each of his last three seasons, joining Max Scherzer and R.A. Dickey.

As for Cueto who turned down a deal worth a reported 6-year, $120 Million from the Diamondbacks earlier in the off-season which resulted in them breaking the bank for Greinke, the Dominican-born hurler lands with another team quite familiar with winning championships after helping the Kansas City Royals claim their first World Series title in over 30 years. The Giants are just happy he's on the same squad now as Cueto joins a team he's dominated throughout his career, having posted a 3-1 record and an ERA of 2.08 in six regular season starts against them. Also, his 1.69 ERA at AT&T Park is the best of any ballpark in which he's made multiple starts. Cueto's 2015 campaign was a tale of two halves which ultimately ended in him winning a World Series ring. After enduring a tremendous first half of the season with the Cincinnati Reds before landing in Kansas City at the trade deadline where he saw small sample sizes of success but mainly struggled and was unable to duplicate the kind of production and effectiveness he had in Cincy, Cueto came through and delivered when it mattered most -- during the postseason.
Boasting a career record of 96-70 with a 3.30 ERA, Cueto has done especially well against NL West opponents, having posted a stellar 2.87 ERA against them. Since 2010, Cueto's ERA of 2.87 ranks third among MLB starters who've pitched a minimum of 900 innings, behind only Clayton Kershaw and Adam Wainwright. The Giants will hope to see more of the Johnny Cueto that dominated the first half of 2015 but know they've got another workhorse on their hands as he trails only David Price and his new teammate Madison Bumgarner in innings pitched over the past two seasons with a whopping 480 2/3 innings (regular and postseason) to his credit. While the Giants became the first team in MLB history to sign two pitchers to free-agent contracts worth at least $90 Million in the same offseason, they also made a non-pitcher signing that fans are equally as excited about. Serving as the icing on the cake, the Giants put the finishing touches on their busy offseason with the acquisition of outfielder Denard Span who agreed to a 3-year, $31 Million dollar pact.

A true lead-off hitter who puts the ball in play and seldom strikes out, Span is coming off a 2015 season plagued by various injuries, most notably a hip ailment which required surgery and limited him to just 61 games. When healthy, however, Span has proven just how valuable he can be, both at the plate and in the field, having become a fixture on the highlight reel by making spectacular plays with his glove and even leading the National League in hits in 2014 with 184. Expected to shift to left field when not manning center field in place of fellow outfielder Angel Pagan who's been battling injuries of his own over the past several seasons, he should fit right at home with his newest ball club. A healthy season from Span who will now patrol the vast outfield of AT&T Park and even better -- hit in a yard that has plenty of gaps and dimensions that could cater nicely to his hitting ability (he's led each the AL in 2009 and NL in 2013 in triples), could play a vital role in San Francisco's 2016 success. Despite finishing 84-78 in 2015, eight games behind the division-winning L.A. Dodgers, the Giants did finish the year with a +69 run differential and were tops in the NL in batting average, thanks in large part to their All-Star shortstop Brandon Crawford. After slugging a team-high 21 home runs a season ago and winning a Gold Glove Award, the Giants rewarded their homegrown shortstop to a six-year, $75 Million dollar contract extension for the cherry on top of what was a successful offseason for the team that plays in the city by the bay.


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