The Giants Baseball Blog

With Johnny Cueto passing his physical last week and officially being introduced  as a San Francisco Giant, the orange and black have shored up their starting rotation. Now, with roughly 8 weeks until players report for spring they can shift all of their focus into the outfield. Obviously a popular question after the Giants signed Cueto last week was whether or not the Giants had the resources left to upgrade left field. Most assumed that the Giants would pretty much be done, but Bobby Evans actually said he would be surprised if they weren't able to upgrade there. He also said recently that the team would be more than comfortable with Gregor Blanco heading into the year if need be. So the big question is which route is the most realistic way to upgrade left field, if they are indeed able to? All outfielders who were available after Jason Heyward are still available on December 22nd, which is a bit surprising as many thought things would start falling into place after Heyward si...

Well, if you remember earlier this offseason when the top-three free agent starting pitchers came off the board so quickly, it left Johnny Cueto as the cream of the crop pretty early on. I also posted shortly after the Zach Grienke signing that it was Johnny Cueto or bust for SF . Needless to say, the team did not "bust"! The Giants were reportedly in on Johnny Cueto sort of all along, but were never considered favorites after signing Jeff Samrdzija to that big deal earlier this month. However, the Giants still needed a starter, probably compared the money they'd give to Cueto to the money they'd have to pay a guy like Mike Leake and decided it better to take that last "potential ace" off the market, signing him to a 6-year, $130M contract. I don't blame them one bit. I mean, Mike Leake, who's about the same age as Cueto, has nowhere near Cueto's ability to dominate when he's on. I mean, just look at game two of the World Series last ye...

There has been so much talk all over the airwaves and throughout internet media sources about Major League Baseball free agency and most of the talk has centered on the free-agent starting pitching market. It does make some since though as there were really only two true, legit aces on the market in David Price and Zack Greinke. That's no knock on Johnny Cueto or Jordan Zimmerman (who are aces on plenty of squads out there) but the former two are the top guys on whatever staff they join, baring maybe a few exceptions. So, it makes since why so much attention has centered around the starting pitching market, but with Johnny Cueto the only real intriguing arm yet to find a home (and my guess is that should be coming sooner than later), let's just hope it's not the Dodgers. As for the next wave of arms (Samardzija, Mike Leake, Wie Yen-Chen, Hisashi Iwakuma, Kenta Maeda), Jeff Samardzija, considered by many the next best thing after the front-four, landed with the Giants. Alt...

For a team that was heavy in the running for the two top arms on the free agent market, David Price and Zack Greinke, the Giants had to settle for a consolation prize on Saturday. The Giants came to terms with free agent right-hander Jeff Samradzija on a 5-year, $90 million deal in order to slot hard-thrower into the number 2 spot in their rotation behind Madison Bumgarner. Even when the Giants won their last tittle in 2014, they didn't really have a starting pitcher (or many relief arms for that matter) that Bruce Bochy felt comfortable using and Jeff Samardzija will give them just that. There are some concerns about the season Samardzija is coming off of with the ChiSox where he struggled throughout and posted an 11-13 record to go with a 4.96 ERA. It's not like it was a fluke ERA either as he was hit hard, giving up a league-high 229 hits coupled with 29 big flies. Now of course the Giants are hoping a return to the NL will mean a return to his pre-2015 numbers but to te...

Now, bear with us for this post as the Greinke post broke just hours after we originally posted this article and didn't fell it necessary to redo the whole thing with another post coming Sunday. As you've probably heard by now, Zack Greinke will not be coming to San Franciso and inked a deal with the Diamondbacks instead.  In this article we broke down the similarities between Greinke and other top free agent right-hander Johnny Cueto. So, read the article by all means, just now that Greinke is no longer an option In fact, we here at The Giants Baseball Blog are kinda glad Greinke went elswhere besides LA as we'd be perfectly content with Johnny Cueto and here's why: Just last post we gave a lay of the land in the free agent starting pitching department, and with things moving so quickly over the last few days, we may not be able to get many more opinions out before it's too late and every body's been signed. Anyway, this one is going to be pretty short a...

With the first two big offseason signings in the books and the Winter Meetings just around the corner, things are about to really start heating up on the baseball hot stove front. That first big signing of the winter involved a guy the Giants had firmly on their radar, and a guy they sorely could have used to help head their rotation with Madison Bumgarner. Instead of heading out west though, power-righty Jordan Zimmermann choose to ink a five-year deal with the Detroit Tigers as they attempt to fill the void they never were able to after Max Scherzer left. Zimmerman was a guy I really had hoped they'd target because I knew he would be significantly cheaper than David Price and Zach Grienke but not to the extent we're seeing. David Price just inked a ridiculous 7/$217M deal with the Red Sox as they try and right their ship after a very disappointing 2015 campaign. Now I like David Price and lefties like him don't come around too often but he's not even the best left-...