MLB Hot Stove heating up as Giants make first impactful additions

The annual MLB Winter Meetings in San Diego came to a close earlier this week and the Giants have to feel pretty decently about what they were able to accomplish while in attendance.

No, there was no Gerrit Cole or Stephen Strasburgh signing, and Nick Castellanos has not agreed to come aboard (not yet at least), but the Giants and Farhan Zaidi were able to make a couple of moves that will help them both in the upcoming season, and perhaps for many years to come.

In their first notable move of the offseason, the Giants inked free agent starting pitcher Kevin Gausman to a 1-year/$9M deal with incentives added in that could push the deal into the $10M range. We'll talk more about Gausman and what he'll bring to the table in 2020 in a minute but first lets take a look at who they now have locked into their rotation.

The Giants, as of now, only have 3 guys cemented into the 5-man rotation, led by Johnny Cueto, Jeff Samardzija and now Gausman. Cueto, although he looked pretty good in his brief return from Tommy John Surgery in September, can't be penciled in for a 180+ inning workload so they're gonna need starting pitching depth this season more than ever. Farhan has stated his desire to head into the season with at least 7-8 guys capable of holding down a rotation spot so you know he's going to be active searching for more depth in addition to Gausman.

Most likely Logan Webb and Tyler Beede would round out the rotation if the season were to start tomorrow, but I think Zaidi would ideally like to have those guys more of the 6th and 7th options. Or, at the very least, have them battle it out for the fifth spot, with the loser then waiting in the wings when needed. So, if that is indeed the case, the Giants should still be in the market for at least one more starter, and maybe two. The one name that I really like, and someone I would have chosen over Gausman, even if you had to go multiple years and a little more annually than they did with Gausman is Braves free agent right-hander Julio Teheran.

I've always been a big fan of Teheran as I've seen that guy when he's on and he has legit #2 starter capabilities. He, like Gausman, is 28 years old, but has an even better, more consistent track record than the Giants new number-3 starter. In seven full seasons in Atlanta, Teheran has had an ERA over 4.04 just one time and is coming off back-to-back campaigns in which he's combined to put up a 3.84 ERA, 1.27 WHIP and ERA+ of 114. Obviously not earth shattering, but his consistency is about as legit as any other free agent starter on the market. Putting him in Oracle Park for half his starts would probably increase his peripherals as well. The Braves declined his $12M option but only because I believe they're trying to allocate funds to use elsewhere. In my opinion Teheran is well worth $12 million a season and I'd have no issues whatsoever if the Giants offered the right-hander a deal in the $10-12M range for 2 or 3 seasons. Michael Pineda (2/$20M) and Kyle Gibson (3/$28M) would seem to fall around the same ballpark as Teheran's expected AAV and that would be completely fine with me.

In comparing Teheran and Gausman, they're both identical ages, and have pretty similar track records but Teheran has been much more consistent and I believe has more of an ability to dominate when he's on. Like I said, I've seen some starts by him in which he was looking downright unhittable with crazy movement and very good command. I couldn't find a 2019 highlight reel for the right-hander but here's a nice 2018 highlight video that shows you some of his abilities (including being a threat with the bat in his hands.'

Anyway, Gausman is on-board, and the more it's been sitting with me, the more I'm taking to the deal. He leans mostly on 4 pitches and he can command them all very well when he's on, which makes him a tough at-bat. He leans mostly on his mid-90's heater that can touch 99, to go along with a biting splitter, a sinker and a change-up. His swing and miss pitches are his nasty slider and split which both sit in the low-to-mid 80's. Here is a clip from 2018 when he was using all his pitches well and ended up striking out the side on 9 pitches and you can get a good look at that slider, the split and the movement on his heater. If you overlook his brutal '19 season, and if he instead were coming off his '18 or better yet, his '16 season (180 IP, 174 K, 119 ERA+ and a 1.20 WHIP) this guy's probably looking at offers closer to what Zach Wheeler got from Philly (5 years/$118M). In fact in his 2016-18 season's he averaged an ERA of 4.09, 1.34 WHIP, 109 ERA+ with 8.5 ks/9 and a 3/1 K:BB ratio. Basically a smidge better than Jeff Samardzija at half the price and 6 years younger.

When taking everything into consideration with this Gausman deal and his potential coming to this ballpark, I have to give Farhan a solid B for this one. Again, I'd have liked to see Teheran instead if they're only able to get one of the two, but Gausman should be a fine 4 or 5 starter with the potential to be a 3! Sure we all want Madison Bumgarner back to round out the rotation, but keep an eye on Teheran as a consolation. I could totally live with a rotation of Cueto-Teheran-Samardzija-Gausman-Webb/Beede while guys like Dereck Rodriguez, Tyler Anderson and Andrew Suarez provide some of that depth that Farhan desires.

I'm gonna save the Zach Cozart/Will Wilson trade talk for either Sunday or Monday's post as we're running low on time and I don't wanna take too much of your guys' in one article. I can say, however, that I'm a fan of both of the moves Farhan has made since letting Kevin Pillar walk, and this shows me that he had a plan of some sort by making that decision with Pillar.