Other pitchers the Giants could consider

Not mentioned: the guy I am refusing to mention

The Giants didn’t get Shota Imanaga, just like I said they wouldn’t after I spent 800 words saying they would. They didn’t get Yoshinobu Yamamoto either, or Sonny Gray, and they didn’t even get the chance to not get Aaron Nola. Eduardo Rodriguez, Seth Lugo, and even Lucas Giolito got gobbled up while the Giants were busy not signing any pitchers.

And the Giants need pitchers. Alex Cobb and Robbie Ray should be back from injury midseason (Cobb a bit sooner than Ray), but the team does still have to play games until then, and the current projected rotation of Logan Webb, Ross Stripling, Kyle Harrison, Tristan Beck, and Keaton Winn could also be called Logan and The Four Question Marks (band name!), which isn’t an ideal situation.

According to Alex Pavlovic, the Giants “still intend to add to the rotation.” If they were so inclined, the team could trade for another pitcher, but I think a free agent is more likely. Trading for pitchers takes resources, and the Giants have done a pretty good job recently with short term deals for free agent pitchers, so why use those resources? Why take the chance? So let’s take a look at the free agent starters the Giants could pursue.

Blake Snell, Jordan Montgomery

Haven’t you been paying attention? No! Of course not! Stop thinking about this, you fool.

Marcus Stroman, Julio Urias, Mike Clevinger

Also hard nos, but for different reasons (Probably still too expensive/antisemitic tweets, domestic violence, being a total fucking tool, respectively).

Clayton Kershaw

Hey, this would be fun! But no, he also won’t be back until midseason, and those two roster spots are currently full.

Madison Bumgarner

Just seeing if you’re paying attention! We like to have fun around here.

Carlos Carrasco, Corey Kluber, Rich Hill, Noah Syndergaard

It’s not impossible that the Giants think they can unlock something from when one of these guys were good. But on the other hand: that’s not going to happen because they’re all bad now and they’re going to stay bad. Sometimes you hit your late thirties (or your early thirties in Syndergaard’s case) and you don’t have it anymore and you’ll never have it again. Sometimes you last a bunch more years like Rich Hill, but eventually time catches up to you.

Zack Greinke

Like the last category, except not quite into the Irredeemable stage of the aging curve yet. Still headed there for sure, but technically above replacement level in 2023. Good job, Zack!

Anyway, probably a no here too, since he apparently told George Brett he wanted to finish his career with the Royals.

Jake Odorizzi

All right, I’ll throw you a bone here. I think this one is incredibly possible. Odorizzi was an All-Star in 2019, and did a nice job for the Astros in 2021 and 2022. In fact, he did such a nice job in 2022 that he got traded to the Braves midseason. He wasn’t great with Atlanta, who traded him to the Rangers after the season, and then he promptly got hurt and missed all of 2023.

But look at all the Farhan boxes he checks! Used to be good, got injured, was on the Rays at one point, will be willing to sign a one-year prove-it deal. Obviously there are enough unknowns that I can’t be sure of anything (the Giants’ evaluation of Odorizzi and whether he wants to come to San Francisco being the two biggest ones), but as a candidate to be a part of Farhan’s Amorphous Blob Of Starterish Guys, he seems like a real possibility.

Alex Wood

Now I’m just being a smartass.

Michael Lorenzen

Two starts into his time with the Phillies, he was having an excellent season. After coming over from the Tigers in a midseason trade, he threw 8 innings of 2-run ball in his first start with Philadelphia, and then followed that up with a no-hitter.

Then it all went wrong. He gave up 7 runs to the Nationals, 4 to the Giants in August (reprehensible), 4 to the Angels, 7 to the Padres, 4 to the Braves, and lost his spot in the Phillies rotation. Over those 5 starts, his ERA jumped from 3.23 to 4.06. He ended up pitching 2.2 scoreless innings in the postseason, but Philadelphia clearly considered him damaged goods.

If there’s one thing Farhan Zaidi likes when building a roster, it’s damaged goods. He has to be at least intrigued by the prospect of fixing a broken starter, reaping the rewards, and then trying to do it again in 2025. What could be more Farhan?

James Paxton

2023 was the first time Paxton had pitched more than 21 innings since 2019, as his array of injuries since then — a cyst, Tommy John surgery, a hamstring strain, knee inflammation — have kept him off the field. Whether he can actually hold up for a full season is anyone’s guess, but then, do the Giants really need a full season out of him? Or do they just need someone to tide them over until they get reinforcements at the All-Star Break?

Brad Keller, Eric Lauer, Zach Davies

Bad, injured for a while last year, youngish (28-30). On the table, but not likely.

Hyun-jin Ryu

This is the one that feels right. He was on the Dodgers when Zaidi was there, pitched very well, signed with Toronto, had a couple of good years before getting injured and requiring Tommy John in mid-2022. He came back last year, had good results (though a poor FIP) over 11 starts, and probably doesn’t want a big, multi-year deal, because he’s looking to rebuild his value.

The only reason Ryu isn’t a slam dunk is that his track record was so good in LA that someone might give him a Giolito-like contract for a high annual value and a player-friendly opt-out. The Giants could play in that sandbox if they chose to, but the whole point of everything I’m doing here is that they don’t really want to. If you want to pay a lot of money, then you go after Snell or Montgomery or Imanaga. If you want to feel smart for piecing together a hodgepodge that is more than the sum of its parts for at least a little while, then you avoid that kind of thing like the plague. Ryu might be too right for the Giants’ blood at this point. It’s not that they can’t afford him; it’s that they don’t want to.

So of all those guys, who’s the most likely? I’d say Ryu is definitely the one the Giants want the most, but I could see them going with Odorizzi. Lorenzen fell apart at the end of the year, sure — Giants fans wouldn’t know anything about players doing that — but he was still an All-Star, and that’s not something that 30 GMs are going to just overlook. With Paxton, it feels like you’re desperately grabbing as much sand as you can in your hands before it slips through your fingers. You know the injury is coming at some point.

But, if I had to make a prediction, Ryu is the guy. The Giants can make it work if they want to enough. I think they’ll want to enough, and considering how badly they need depth at starting pitcher, it’ll be a necessary step to making the team moderately less unwatchable.