Giants confirm Sanchez signing

Kapler: Adding pitcher won’t hurt prospects

The Giants likely solidified their rotation Sunday when they officially inked Aaron Sanchez.

But the franchise’s brain trust is telling the next handful of pitchers to keep striving for a job that isn’t available quite yet.

“We need 162 starts this year,” manager Gabe Kapler said. “Don’t stop competing. Keep getting after it. If you’re Logan Webb, you’re not going to be denied the opportunity to start baseball games for us because we signed Aaron Sanchez.

“It’s a very clear message.” The message easily could be a little muddied on a staff that returned Johnny Cueto, agreed to a qualifying offer with Kevin Gausman in November, signed Anthony DeSclafani in December, and added Alex

Wood in January.

The Giants inked Sanchez to complete a fiveman rotation with a deal that was reported a week ago by The Chronicle and finally made official Sunday. The righthander signed a oneyear contract worth $4 million, with a chance to make an additional $2.5 million, according to the team.

Sanchez will get $250,000 each for start Nos. 16 and 18, and $500,000 each for Nos. 20, 22, 24 and 26.

“I’ve got the blueprint on how to get there,” Sanchez said. “Now it’s just about making sure I get there.”

It has been a while since Sanchez has gotten there.

He missed all of 2020 as he recovered from a right shoulder surgery. The 28yearold combined for 27 starts with Toronto and Houston in 2019 and made 20 starts for Toronto in 2018, when he was a year removed from his best season.

Sanchez led the American League in win percentage (152, .882), ERA (3.00) and fewest homers (0.7) allowed per nine innings in 2016 for the Blue Jays.

“In 2016, you would have to not being paying close attention to not notice the work he did with the Blue Jays,” said Kapler, who mentioned that Sanchez arrived in Scottsdale, Ariz., several hours before his scheduled report time of 2 p.m. Saturday. “That was unquestionably his best year, and by all accounts, it was when he was at his peak physically and mentally.

“At that point, it would be hard to argue that he wasn’t a top20 starter in all of baseball — maybe better than that.”

The Giants seemingly have coveted Sanchez ever since then.

President of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi said he had talks about acquiring Sanchez at the 2019 trade deadline and scouted him throughout his rehab. In an October showcase, he was throwing 9294 mph, and by the middle of this month, he was registering at 9798 mph.

Signing Sanchez meant the Giants had to make a corresponding move on their 40man roster. Trevor Gott was designated for assignment just two months after he reupped with the team and two years after the righthander went 70 with a 4.44 ERA.

But that isn’t supposed to stifle Webb, Sam Long, Nick Tropeano or Shun Yamaguchi.

The Giants haven’t ruled out a sixman rotation, and Zaidi said they will need probably 79 starters to cope with a schedule impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.

“It doesn’t make sense for us to focus on the Opening Day roster, even though that’s a big discussion point this time of year,” Zaidi said. “We just know that we’re going to need at least seven, eight, nine starting pitchers to get through the season. …

“We’re trying to focus on what is a reasonable workload to get out of these guys over the course of the season and seeing if we can do the math to get up to 162 games. That’s going to be a challenge for every team in baseball this year.”