Rotation makeover is likely complete
After entering the offseason with a clear plan to rebuild their rotation with veteran starting pitchers, the San Francisco Giants’ staff makeover appears complete.
It took until the fifth day of spring workouts for the puzzle pieces to fit together, but the team finally announced the addition of 2016 All-Star Aaron Sanchez, who agreed to a one-year, $4 million deal earlier this week.
“He was 92 to 94 (miles per hour) in October and was able to spin the breaking ball well which has always been kind of a signature skill for him,” Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi said. “So from that point on we stayed in contact throughout the offseason.”
To clear a roster spot for Sanchez, 28, the club made a surprise decision to designate reliever Trevor Gott for assignment. Gott spent the early portion of the 2020 season as the Giants’ closer and was tendered a 2021 contract in December, when the team agreed to pay him a $700,000 salary for the upcoming season.
“We have a pretty deep pitching group right now with some of the (non-roster invitees) we’ve brought in and guys on the roster so certainly would have preferred a situation where we didn’t have
to make a move off of the roster, but that was just a position of depth,” Zaidi said.
It’s possible Gott could return to the Giants if he goes unclaimed on waivers, but it was going to be difficult for the righthander to find a home in the team’s bullpen this season because he’s out of minor league options.
The Giants have several right-handed pitchers with major league experience in spring camp who will vie to replace Gott, but few of the team’s offseason additions come with the same level of upside Sanchez offers.
It’s been 11 years since Sanchez was a first round draft pick out of Barstow High and more than four years since he finished seventh in American League Cy Young voting, but Giants manager Gabe Kapler still remembers Sanchez’s dominance.
“It would be hard to argue he wasn’t a top 20 starter in all of baseball, maybe better than that,” Kapler said. “Certainly thought of as a guy with great athleticism and stuff.”
The former Blue Jays and Astros right-hander missed the entire 2020 season while recovering from a 2019 surgery to repair a torn capsule in his throwing shoulder, but nearly signed with the Giants last August when they were interested in bringing him to the team’s Sacramento alternate site.
Zaidi checked in on Sanchez again in October and monitored his progress throughout the offseason, but after the right-hander’s fastball velocity ticked up to 97-to-98 miles per hour in a bullpen in Miami last week, the Giants decided to make him a formal offer.
Providing Sanchez with the opportunity to start games helped sway him to sign with San Francisco.
“That’s a huge reason why I inked the deal here,” Sanchez said.”Even in my years prior, I’ve been banged up a little bit and if you look then, I still made 27 starts in 2019 not being healthy. I’ve been around, I know what it takes to perform through 162 games. I know what kind of workload needs to be done to manage that.”
Sanchez can earn up to $2.5 million in performance bonuses depending on the number of starts he makes. He’s as healthy as he’s been in five seasons, and set to solidify his spot.