Kevin Gausman

The Giants are hoping for a lot from Kevin Gausman. If he can perform close to his projections, there’s a good chance they’ll make him a multi-year offer. The team has learned a lesson or two about long-term contracts, so I suspect the 30-year old righty would get something like three years, not five. But in today’s market three years is a long time. The only new Giants player with a three-year deal is Tommy La Stella, for example. Even Trevor Bauer signed a three-year deal, and he has a CYA on his shelf.

Gausman made his spring debut today and pitched two uneventful innings. The Giants have over 40 pitchers in camp and we’ve seen an inning, it seems, from every one of them! Now that they are getting closer to the opener the projected starters are getting scheduled for some game time. (Scott Kazmir also pitched today.)

It will be all about the results for Gausman. He’s said publicly that he’d like to stay in San Francisco, and I think the Giants feel similarly. The former first-round draft pick (#4 in 2012) has some strong seasons behind him but injury and ineffectiveness pushed him into baseball limbo. Last year he changed his pitch mix and increased his velocity and saw the payoff with a career-high strikeout rate and a career-low FIP. Walk and homer rates edged below career averages, too. It’s hard to know how that will translate to a 30-start season rather than a 10-start one, but the Giants like his attitude and work ethic. They’d like to see him be the ace they can match up with Kershaw and Buehler and Snell and Darvish and the rest.

He may not be quite at their level, but he has a good chance to be very close. Close enough to give the team a fair chance against them. Projections tend to give Gausman about 30 starts (~170 IP) with solid peripherals, around a 3.65 FIP and 3+ WAR. The Giants would be happy with that, as would I. What the 2021 team needs is some solid, consistent pitchers. They need a starter they can count on every turn through the rotation. (Johnny Cueto, can you be that guy, too?) And if Kevin Gausman turns into the second coming of Jason Schmidt that could make the year very interesting indeed.

–M.C.