Cary Edmondson-USA TODAY Sports
Perhaps he was just accounting for off-days. Or maybe Logan Webb was projecting how the Giants can enter this season without letting down their six best starting candidates.
This season, he said over Zoom, he wants to “be able to come out every fifth or sixth day and be able to succeed.”
Every sixth day is a possibility this year.
Once Aaron Sanchez is introduced, the Giants will have a veteran corps of Kevin Gausman, Anthony DeSclafani, Alex Wood and Johnny Cueto that projects as anything from a club strength to an enormous weakness, such is the variability with each member. Webb, whose stuff and makeup the Giants love, was in the “driver’s seat” for the fifth spot, Kapler said, before they landed Sanchez.
If everyone pitches well this spring, it’s possible all six break camp as big-league starters.
“Six-man rotation and other alternative strategies to a five-man rotation will always be on the table for us,” the manager said Friday. “If we have six pitchers that emerge as absolute locks for our major league roster — six starting pitchers — I think it’s a consideration.”
Eventually.
“I don’t think that we will just push in that direction without having a lot more information,” Kapler added. “And that information is not likely to come for several weeks or even till the end.”
Granted, Kapler is not going to find reasons to complain publicly about his staff, but the (very) early work from the pitchers through the first few days of camp has been encouraging.
Gausman, DeSclafani, Wood and Cueto have little to prove except health and will be making starts the first week of April. Sanchez has had top-flight stuff for much of his career but has seen plenty of injuries and (perhaps related) ineffectiveness the past few seasons and did not pitch in 2020 after ’19 shoulder surgery. It’s possible the Giants see his best avenue toward success and health coming out of the bullpen, but he reportedly impressed enough in a showcase that San Francisco signed him.
Webb’s bullpen session Wednesday led to one Giants coach calling it the “best pen he saw all day.” There is hope that the talented Webb can make 2021 the season he puts it all together, and the plan is for him to further emphasize offspeed offerings and reduce the usage of his fastball, which was hit hard last season.
Nick Tropeano, who started games for the Astros and Angels from 2014-19, was dominant out of the bullpen last year for the Pirates and is now in camp on a minor league deal. He brings control, which Kapler and the Giants love, and is positioning himself to be a starting contender, too — as well as a bulk or one-inning option.
“He has a nice opportunity to find his way onto our Opening Day roster either as an innings guy, which he’s totally comfortable with, potentially as a starter and also he’s had some experience out of the pen,” Kapler said of the 30-year-old righty. “He’s one of those guys that I can see filling a variety of roles, and he’s in a really interesting competition with a lot of our NRIs [non-roster invites] in camp.”
Caleb Baragar, who was solid in relief last season, will be stretched out as a starter so the Giants can evaluate what he would look like. Conner Menez and Anthony Banda will be in the mix. The young starting prospects in camp are beginning their cases for why they should be called up later this season. Kapler said 22-year-old Kai-Weng Teng looks like a “veteran pitcher” with how he controls the zone. Tristan Beck, 24, “looks like a fluid major leaguer on the mound.” Sean Hjelle and Matt Frisbee similarly will get their praise.
“It’s going to be fun to see how those guys put themselves on the radar for when we’re going to need starting pitching later in the season because that is inevitable that that’s going to happen,” Farhan Zaidi said last week. “One of these guys is probably going to get the opportunity.”
Will one be called up to be a sixth rotation member in a full, 162-game season that is following a hectic 60-game sprint, in which every pitcher was used nontraditionally, and with little precedent for how arms will bounce back? It’s at least a possibility.