It would appear that the San Francisco Giants have set their rotation. After agreeing to a one-year New Year’s Eve special with righty Tyler Mahle, the Giants now have five established starting pitchers
under contract for 2025. You can quibble with the order if you want, but, assuming health (a big assumption, admittedly), these are the five players slated to start games when the season begins:
- Logan Webb (R)
- Robbie Ray (L)
- Tyler Mahle (R)
- Landen Roupp (R)
- Adrian Houser (R)
There could be other moves, admittedly, though it seems unlikely. The Giants were never likely to dip into the Framber Valdez/Ranger Suárez pool, and with Tatsuya Imai signing with the Houston Astros, we can officially scratch the Giants off from the list of big game hunters on the pitching market. The Zac Gallens of the world are almost surely off the table as well, though it’s seemingly possible that the Giants could pursue a Max Scherzer type for a little bit of depth, which wouldn’t be a bad idea given the injury history of … umm … every single person in that above quintet, save for the staff ace.
But in all likelihood, it’s these five, with Hayden Birdsong, Blade Tidwell, Carson Whisenhunt, Trevor McDonald, Carson Seymour, Kai-Wei Teng, and Keaton Winn battling for the dozens of additional starts that the team will invariably need.
Last year, the Giants staff (which was Webb starting 34 games, Ray starting 32, Justin Verlander starting 29, Roupp starting 22, Birdsong starting 10, Jordan Hicks starting nine, Teng starting seven, Whisenhunt starting five, Kyle Harrison starting four, Seymour starting three, McDonald starting two, Tristan Beck, JT Brubaker, and Sean Hjelle each starting one, and Matt Gage opening a pair of bullpen games) finished 11th in the Majors in fWAR (12.2), 17th in ERA (4.10), and second in FIP (3.73).
How does this one compare? It certainly isn’t particularly inspiring, but it shouldn’t be particularly bad, either. Middling feels like the right word which, admittedly, is a wee bit disappointing.
Okay, more than a wee bit…
