2. Who will be in the back of the pitching rotation?
The front end of the starting rotation for the Giants has been good for years. Whether it wasTim Lincecum,Matt Cain, orMadison Bumgarnerat the front, the Giants have found a superstar pitcher in their farm system many times over the last decade.
Now they haveJohnny Cuetoas a reliable second part of a rotation punch, andMatt Mooreseems to have locked down the third spot after being acquired last season and making a mark quickly. The rest of the rotation, however, is extremely unfinished.
The Giantscurrently listveteransJeff SamardzijaandMatt Cainas fourth and sixth, but that is anything but concrete. Samardzija pitched well in many games for San Francisco last year and put up decent stats, but he seems prone to the occasional implosion, and that can be detrimental when every game counts.
Cain is also extremely unpredictable and coming off many tough injuries, with only 17 games pitched last season and 16 home runs surrendered. The main aspect that makes these two so hard to justify removing from the rotation is their contract situation. Cain is still earning over twenty million dollars a season, and Samardzija is due to make nineteen million dollars in 2017.
The ‘best of the rest’ include young pitchers likeTy Blach,Albert Suarez,Chris Stratton,Kyle Crick, andClayton Blackburn. Only Blach, Suarez, and Stratton have major league appearances, and have yet to demonstrate that they deserve to be main-stays in the rotation.
The others have yet to make their major league debuts due to their own challenges, and all will have a lot to prove coming into spring training.
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