It is significant that Trevor Story will play shortstop over Kiké and the group we had last year. It's fine to want more pitching and we should acquire some, but more people should take that into account when they're grousing about our rotation.
You say "available" like the front office just can sign anyone they want at a Free Agent Store at any time. Of the Top 11 starters on the market:
- Ohtani, Yamamoto, and ERod had zero chance of signing here
- Nola quickly re-upped with Philly
- Gray took short money to play in St Louis near his home
That left:
- Kershaw with all his injury history and age
- Imanaga, who carries all the uncertainty of a non-superstar Japanese pitcher (his market cratered for unknown reasons)
- Snell and Montgomery, who are Boras guys and he'll likely diddlefuck around until spring training to get them every last dollar
So of those "available" guys, as of December, Giolito and Stroman were the only two who a) might be convinced to sign here b) didn't have significant red flags attached. I'm not sure what more you wanted the front office to do in terms of free agent starting pitchers.
Thank you. It is mind-blowing how few people are capable of considering this, apparently.
Or maybe the chance wasn't zero?
Additionally, "top 11" seems like a carefully selected cutpoint. It leaves off Seth Lugo, Michael Wacha, Kenta Maeda, Nick Martinez, Kyle Gibson, Frankie Montas, Jack Flaherty, Sean Manea, and Luis Severino.
Which one of those guys do you like better as our fifth starter than Tanner Houck?
Houck, one of the heaviest ground ball starters in MLB, had a 5.05 ERA and 3.82 xFIP before his injury. He came back and really struggled with command vs. lefties (7.6 BB% pre-injury, 14.7 BB% afterward) and finished with a 5.01 and a 4.07 xFIP.
He’s projected to throw 145 innings at a 4.27 ERA next year, good for 1.9 fWAR. Here are those other guys’ projections (with ages):
Houck (28) - 145 IP, 4.27 ERA, 1.9 fWAR
Lugo (34) - 156 IP, 4.36 ERA, 2.1 fWAR
Wacha (32) - 156 IP, 4.67 ERA, 1.7 fWAR
Maeda (35) - 144 IP, 4.10 ERA, 2.1 fWAR
Martinez (32) - 119 IP, 4.67 ERA, 1.2 fWAR
Gibson (36) - 178 IP, 4.31 ERA, 2.1 fWAR
Montas (31) - 150 IP, 4.42 ERA, 2.1 fWAR
Flaherty (28) - 155 IP, 4.41 ERA, 1.5 fWAR
Manaea (32) - 148 IP, 3.99 ERA, 2.0 fWAR
Severino (30) - 144 IP, 4.28 ERA, 1.6 fWAR
I know it would have tamed a lot of people’s ire if we had given $50 million to Seth Lugo, but how much better does that make us?
It’s also true that Andrew Bailey has direct experience tweaking and improving Giants pitchers pretty much with
Houck’s exact repertoire, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they were optimistic.