San Francisco Giants Holding A Pair of Aces Again

After a busy offseason, the San Francisco Giants have a very good problem, and a quite familiar one at that, on their hands: multiple ace pitchers.

Just a few years ago, the Giants boasted a rotation that featured two-time Cy Young Award winner Tim Lincecum, one of the most dominant pitchers in baseball, and Matt Cain, one of the game’s most under-the-radar, yet fascinatingly spectacular pitchers. Add in a burgeoning Bumgarner, who debuted as a big leaguer just 38 days after his 20th birthday, and that gave the Giants one of the most feared rotations known to man.

But like Bob Dylan tried to tell us, the times changed for the Giants. Over the past few seasons, the two former aces Cain and Lincecum have become shells of their former selves as injuries and inconsistencies have hit hard, and Bumgarner, now hairier and angrier than that 20-year-old kid, has carried the team’s rotation on his broad, country-bred shoulders. Despite being stronger than ox, Bumgarner needed some help.

The Giants gave him that help this offseason, first by signing Jeff Samardzija, and later adding Johnny Cueto. With the addition of Cueto, the Giants now have a pair of aces up their sleeve again. Few pitchers in baseball have been as dominant as Bumgarner has since his debut late in 2009, and Cueto’s development with the Cincinnati Reds has turned him into one of the trickiest pitchers to hit in baseball.

Among active pitchers with at least 1,000 innings on their ledger, Bumgarner has the third-lowest ERA at 3.04, behind only Clayton Kershaw (of course) and Adam Wainwright. Cueto isn’t far behind, with his 3.30 ERA ranking him sixth. Using the same criteria, Bumgarner has the second-lowest WHIP at 1.111, while Cueto’s 1.181 is 10th-lowest. The duo also rank in the top-20 in hits allowed per nine innings and winning percentage.

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Since moving to San Francisco in 1958, the Giants have had three pitchers hurl at least three successive seasons of recording a sub-3.00 ERA while making at least 30 starts. One of them is Bumgarner, who has cracked those totals in each of the last three seasons. The other two are Hall of Famers Juan Marichal and Gaylord Perry, both of whom recorded four consecutive such seasons.

Since the Reds moved into the Great American Ball Park, a notoriously hitter-friendly park, for the 2003 season, the team has gotten three sub-3.00 ERA seasons from a starting pitcher. All three have come from the right arm of Cueto.

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And of course, there’s the postseason success. In 14 postseason games, Bumgarner owns a stellar 2.14 ERA and 0.883 WHIP. In the World Series, he has allowed one single run in 36 innings spread over five games, good for a 0.25 ERA that is the lowest in World Series history. Cueto’s numbers don’t look nearly as pretty (5.35 ERA, 1.248 WHIP), but he did throw an impressive complete game in game two of the 2015 World Series, holding the New York Mets to one run in a big win en route to a Kansas City Royals’ World Series win.

Having two aces is a great problem to have. With Zack Greinke no longer a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Giants may be the team that has the best one-two punch among starters in baseball. Though Bumgarner will likely start his third straight Opening Day for the Giants, there isn’t a singular “ace” for the team. The combination of Bumgarner and Cueto is what will make the Giants so dangerous.

Next: Very Early Opening Day Roster Projection for Giants

In 2010 and 2012 during their respective World Series runs, the Giants’ calling card was the strength of their starting rotation. In 2014, their calling card was Bumgarner. In falling short of the postseason in 2015, their most notable deficiency was in their starting pitching. That shouldn’t be the case in 2016.