Since mid-July or so, I’ve had a draft here with the title “Last thoughts on Anthony DeSclafani.” I was going to sum up his awful season last year, and talk about who bore the blame for it, and maybe get into his range of possibilities going forward. In theory, it would have hit the sweet spot of entertaining and informative and being a topic you’d maybe forgotten mattered to the team.
Then I wasn’t interested in that anymore because, really, who cares that much about Anthony DeSclafani?
Anyway, here is an article about Anthony DeSclafani.
After an outstanding 2021, in which he went 13-7 with a 3.17 ERA in 167.2 innings, DeSclafani signed a 3 year, $36 million contract with the Giants to cover 2022 through 2024. But a bad ankle that he’d started to feel near the end of 2021 started really makings its presence felt in Spring Training 2022, and he was never right all of last year.
In total, Anthony DeSclafani made 5 major league starts in 2022, pitching a total of 19 innings and allowing 21 runs (15 earned). He made three unimpressive starts in April, got shut down because of injury, and came back in June with two worse starts. Nothing went right for him on the field, including that bum ankle, which required surgery after he was shut down for the year.
But on the plus side, he’s back and he’s in the best shape of his life!
That’s coming from Gabe Kapler, who acknowledges what a cliche it is, but insists that in DeSclafani’s case it’s true. Okay, Kapler actually said, “best physical condition we’ve seen him in since we got him,” but when you translate from uses-12-words-where-5-will-do Kaplerese, that’s the same as saying “best shape of his life.”
Of course, as DeSclafani and Evan Webeck both noted, he felt good coming into last year’s Spring Training too, and that didn’t go great. But! This year, DeSclafani actually had a medical professional go in and fix his underlying issue, plus teams actually get a full Spring Training, unlike 2022’s Spring, in which, because this was on the heels of the lockout, they had to rush through all their pre-season work in half the time they should have gotten.
Last offseason, DeSclafani was also not allowed to visit team doctors, because during the lockout players were expressly forbidden from contacting team officials in any way, including medical ways. For someone who had tweaked his ankle during the prior season, that seems like a tall orde
Also, DeSclafani really wants to be good this year. He wants it! That’s gotta be worth something, right?
Now, the 2023 team is wisely not wholly relying on Anthony DeSclafani to fill a hole in the rotation. They have six major league starters in camp, plus Jakob Junis behind glass in case of emergency (an emergency which has arisen in each of the last two seasons). They don’t technically have to have DeSclafani filling a spot; if he’s banged up and he needs a couple days, then you can skip his turn without really losing anything.
That wasn’t possible last year, when rotation was so thin that the Giants brought back DeSclafani after an insufficient number of minor league rehab games, in which he did not pitch particularly well. They were desperate, and they pushed too hard, and they lost him for the season shortly thereafter. Now, I don’t want to say that those two starts were responsible for him losing the rest of the season (they weren’t), but they certainly didn’t help and he certainly shouldn’t have been pitching.
This year, the team shouldn’t have to deal with that. This year, the team shouldn’t have to push guys as hard as possible because they have no other way to fill innings. This is a good thing for the Giants. This is a good thing for Anthony DeSclafani, as well as whatever pitcher will fill the role of 2022 DeSclafani in this year’s rotation.
Let’s all hope that’s no one, by the way.
In 2022, Anthony DeSclafani’s body let him down, and then his team let him down by continuing to let him pitch when he had no business taking the field. But 2023 is a new day. It might not be rational to hope for a big improvement based solely on this year being different from last year, but hey, why not try it just this once? It would be fun. And if he does well, I can finally delete that draft.
"Then I wasn’t interested in that anymore because, really, who cares that much about Anthony DeSclafani?"
Actually, I really care about Anthony DeSclafani! If he's healthy, he's a very good starting pitcher!!