Out With the New, In With the Old

No, we haven't run out of  'em yet. Someday that will happen. But not today. Onward...

Without naming names, Bruce Bochy has tipped his hand as to the constitution of the Giants' new, we're-all-healthy-now starting rotation, which he undoubtedly expects will be the rotation to carry this team into the second half of this season in contention for a division title that currently sits a mere three and a half games away.

Johnny Cueto, who in just five starts this year has already racked up 1.9 WAR, tops among Giants pitchers and fourth-highest on the entire ballclub (did we mention five starts?) will return to the land of the living when the Giants open a four-game set against the St Louis Cardinals at AT&T Park tomorrow. Jeff Samardzija, who in just eight starts this year has already racked up 0.7 "WBR" (or negative-0.7 WAR, if you're so inclined), worst among Giants pitchers and second in awfulness only to Austin Jackson on the whole team, will face the Cardinals on Saturday.

These two stalwarts, the alpha and omega of the 2018 rotation, will likely displace Derek Holland, the lefty reliever-turned-starter who, by and large, has done yeoman work (0.4 WAR in 17 starts), and Chris Stratton, who leads the club in innings pitched and wins, but has shown serious weaknesses in his last two starts, both brutal outings against the Giants' current Main Nemeses, the Colorado Rockies. The Giants only have six games remaining against the Rockies after tonight's series finale at Coors Field, which is good news for our guys.

"Boch" is already committed to 25-year-old left-hander Andrew Suarez (0.6 WAR in 13 starts) for that finale tonight, and 26-year-old Dereck Rodriguez, son of Hall of Famer Ivan Rodriguez, will start Friday in between Cueto and Samardzija. Madison Bumgarner will pitch Sunday, though he's not been announced yet.

With Suarez and "D-Rod" (don't blame us, we didn't invent it, but we're using it) already anointed, then, that rather sounds the bell for Stratton, 27, who is likely to get the chance to work on his consistency at AAA Sacramento, and for the 31-year-old Holland, who will form a triumvirate of southpaws in the Giants' revitalized bullpen with Tony Watson and Will Smith, who have been outstanding. Along with Stratton, expect Pierce Johnson to make the trip upriver. Johnson has pitched better than his back-of-the-bullpen mate, Cory Gearrin, but the latter is out of options and we suppose the FO doesn't want to lose him to a division rival, then see him come back to haunt us in September. (Like that's gonna happen. But we digress. Frequently.)

So it's not a "youth movement" by any means (Cueto is 32, "Shark" 33), but keeping the two youngest guys, who have also been the two most effective guys, is a positive move, remembering too that Bumgarner, in his ninth season, is not yet 29 years old. A popular canard regarding Bochy is that he will do everything he can to keep a veteran in place instead of starting a younger player. This is patent nonsense-- just ask Aaron Rowand, Joaquin Arias, or Casey McGehee about it--  and perhaps this move will help adjust the general perception.

Another bogus charge is that Samardzija is being returned to the rotation only because his outsized, borderline-ridiculous contract (90 million dollars!) demands it. The truth is, in any team sport, players are acutely conscious of where they stand, how vulnerable they are every moment to injury, and whether the team will stand behind them and give them a fair chance if they do get hurt. Were Samardzija to not get his chance to start when healthy-- and he put up a quality 6 innings in his last rehab start in Sacramento Monday-- it would send a message to every player in the clubhouse that management won't give you a chance to regain your position when you're ready. It's not as though any of the current starters (save Bumgarner) has been so good as to be untouchable.

And any thought that "Shark" is guaranteed a spot in the rotation for the rest of the year, no matter how badly he may pitch, is nonsense. Bochy is the manager who demoted Tim Lincecum from the starting rotation not once, not twice, but three times, in 2012, 2013, and 2014, replacing him with Yusmeiro Petit and Chad Gaudin.  Lincecum's pedigree-- as a two-time CYA winner, World Series ace, and genuine hero to many fans-- gave him much more status then than "Shark's" contract gives him today. Yes, the money ensures "Shark" will retain a place in the bullpen, if nothing else, but "Boch" has shown he's perfectly willing to replace him with a guy like, say, Holland, if the situation demands it.

Meanwhile Cueto has been so dominant-- 0.84 ERA, .38 WAR per start-- he could be the difference-maker in this second half, the catalyst who helps the Giants rise from a .500 team to a .550 team with a real shot at the postseason.  Consider that Jacob deGrom of the New York Mets leads the league with 4.9 pitching WAR in 17 starts. Cueto, projected out over the same number of starts, would be at 6.5. That's Cy Young Award territory. And a postseason berth would give us two pitchers-- Bumgarner and Cueto-- who will not gave been worked hard for six months already. OK, we are well ahead of the storyline now. Let's take a breath, and hope young Suarez has the stuff to keep the Giants from being swept out of Coors Field tonight.