Giants sign lefty Wood to one-year deal
The San Francisco Giants finally have a lefthanded pitcher in the mix for a rotation spot.
Alex Wood, an eight-year veteran who spent parts of five seasons with the Los Angeles Dodgers, signed a one-year, $3 million deal with the Giants Thursday that includes performance bonuses that give Wood the chance to earn up to $6 million in 2021.
The southpaw has only pitched in 16 games over the last two seasons due to injury issues, but the Giants are hopeful that he’ll regain the form he showed during the prime of his career when Wood was one of the Dodgers’ most reliable starters.
“We view Alex as a guy who is going to start games for us and hope we can give him the ball every fifth day,” president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi said Thursday. “When you have reliable starters, that’s always going to be preferable to try and patch together 27 outs at the front and back of a game.”
Prior to the 2019 season, Wood had thrown more than 800 major league innings and compiled a 3.29 ERA during stints with the Braves and Dodgers. A
shoulder injury hampered Wood upon his return to Los Angeles as a free agent last offseason, limiting the 30-year-old to nine games and just two starts.
Zaidi has seen Wood at his best, as the team’s top executive was the Dodgers’ general manager during the 2017 season when Wood repped Los Angeles as an All-Star and finished ninth in National League Cy Young Award voting. He said Thursday that when he saw Wood pitch during the 2020 World Series, the four scoreless innings he
threw over two relief outings suggested he can still be a force in a major league rotation.
“For me, watching him pitch like that in the playoffs was reminiscent of when I’ve seen him at his best,” Zaidi said.
If he remains healthy during spring training, Wood will be front-runner for a job in the Giants’ starting rotation. He’s the only left-hander with extensive starting experience in the majors on the 40-man roster and the performance bonuses in his contract were designed so he could take down the innings a starter would expect to throw over the course of a season.
Wood will earn bonuses for games pitched in which he records 10 outs or more including $125,000 for 12 and 14 such games, $250,000 for 16, 18, 20, 22 and 24 games and $500,000 for 26, 28 and 30 games.
Zaidi said the Giants used “outs recorded” instead of “games started” as the trigger for performance bonuses so Wood isn’t penalized if the team uses an opener ahead of his appearances.
With Wood under contract through 2021, the four most experienced starters on the Giants’ roster are all set to become free agents at the end of the season. The group includes right-handers Johnny Cueto, Kevin Gausman and former Reds teammate Anthony DeSclafani, who recently signed a one-year, $6 million deal with the club.
Others expected to vie for starting roles include second-year right-hander Logan Webb and former 2014 first round draft choice Tyler Beede, who underwent Tommy John surgery last March and is expected to be able to throw off a mound during spring training.