This week was supposed to be a big one at Scottsdale Stadium. The spring season should have started on Saturday, but instead, the closest thing we have to baseball is occasional updates on MLB and MLBPA leaders walking through a parking lot in Jupiter, Florida.
Rosters have been frozen for nearly three full months, but at some point -- hopefully soon -- teams will begin preparing for a shortened spring training. This week we'll look back and also forward, examining what the Giants currently have and also what they still need before the start of the season. We'll start with the most surprising position group on the 107-win team, the starting pitchers:
Already on the Roster
Stay in the game with the latest updates on your beloved Bay Area and California sports teams! Sign up here for our All Access Daily newsletter.
When free agency opened up approximately seven years ago, Farhan Zaidi and Scott Harris had a clear wish list: Starting pitching, starting pitching, starting pitching. And then, when that was done, keep adding starting pitching.
The Giants hit the offseason with only Logan Webb in their rotation, but they aggressively worked the market in November and took care of most of their issues. Anthony DeSclafani and Alex Wood are back, and Alex Cobb became the latest veteran to take a short-term deal from an organization that has shown an incredible ability to get the most out of older pitchers who have struggled with consistency.
In those four, the Giants have the makings of a very solid group, although the upside might be a bit limited. The other starters on the 40-man roster are all guys who have the potential to break out at some point: Tyler Beede, Sean Hjelle and Sammy Long.
Like Hjelle, Randy Rodriguez was also added to the roster before the Rule 5 Draft. He has been a dominant reliever in the minors, but Zaidi said the Giants might try to stretch him back out. Caleb Baragar and Kervin Castro are also potential candidates to pitch in bulk innings roles.
San Francisco Giants
Find the latest San Francisco Giants news, highlights, analysis and more with NBC Sports Bay Area and California.
Who Will Be Missing
When Gabe Kapler named Webb his Game 1 starter it wasn't a surprise, but it also wasn't an automatic choice. Webb was the rotation's best pitcher down the stretch, but Kevin Gausman led the charge in 2020 and through the first half of 2021. He had trouble getting deep into games after the break, but he still finished with a 2.81 ERA and 227 strikeouts in 192 innings. If Gausman can repeat that, it'll be the Toronto Blue Jays who might be a surprise division winner.
Gausman signed a five-year, $110 million deal in November and later said the Giants never made an offer. It's easy to see why the Giants balked -- that's well out of their usual comfort zone with starting pitchers and even Gausman admitted that the league somewhat caught on to his fastball-splitter mix late in the year. But it's still going to be painful to make up for that production.
Gausman was a workhorse and formed a powerful one-two punch with Webb, who became a close friend. A front office that has to replace Buster Posey's production also needs to figure out how to make up for the 192 missing innings from a guy who finished sixth in Cy Young voting.
Gausman accounts for half of the starts the Giants will be missing from the 2021 roster. Johnny Cueto makes up most of the rest, as his entertaining but inconsistent six-year run in San Francisco is almost certainly over. The 2021 Giants also got seven starts from Aaron Sanchez, four from Scott Kazmir and one apiece from Jay Jackson (now with the Braves) and Conner Menez (Cubs).
What You Might Have Forgotten
Webb is the clear favorite to start on opening day, and when he does he'll be working on a pretty insane streak: If his first start comes on time, it will have been about 11 months since he last took a loss.
Baseball statistics get more and more advanced, but Zaidi made a surprising point when asked about DeSclafani and Wood late last year. Asked about the need for another ace, he noted that the Giants were remarkably successful when those two were on the mound because they both consistently gave the team a chance to win. Webb took that to extremes.
Webb dropped to 1-3 when he got lit up at Coors Field last May 5, but he's 11-0 since that game and the Giants won 19 of his next 22 starts, including Game 1 of the NLDS. If Webb avoids a loss in his first start of 2022, he'll break a franchise record he currently shares with Carl Hubbell.
The streak was even more impressive at Oracle Park. The Giants went 12-0 in his home starts during the regular season, although that run ended at the worst possible time. Still, Webb took a no-decision in Game 5, so you have to go back to August 27, 2020, to find the last time he drove out of Oracle Park with an L next to his name in the box score.
Prospect Watch
The last dynasty was built around Tim Lincecum, Madison Bumgarner and Matt Cain, all of whom were top 20 prospects before anchoring the rotation, but it's been a while since the Giants consistently developed top-of-the-rotation starting pitching. That could be changing.
Kyle Harrison, a lefty from the East Bay, struck out 157 batters in 98 2/3 innings and is moving up on top 100 lists. The organization is still hitter-heavy in the minors, but Will Bednar was taken 14th overall last summer (he also is the guest on this week's Giants Talk podcast) and the Giants followed that pick by selecting hard-throwing lefty Matt Mikulski.
While some Giants pitching prospects took a step back in 2021, right-hander Ryan Murphy established himself as someone to watch. A fifth-round pick out of Le Moyne College in 2020, Murphy posted a 2.52 ERA in A-ball last year with 164 strikeouts in 107 1/3 innings.
None of those guys are close to the big leagues, but Hjelle -- a former second-rounder -- reached Triple-A last season and should make his debut at some point this year. He had a strong start to the season in Double-A before posting a 5.74 ERA in Sacramento.
What They Need
It's not quite accurate to say the Giants still need a "fifth starter," because you can make a strong case that they actually need a No. 2 starter, especially in a division with Walker Buehler and Julio Urias leading the way for the main rival. Zaidi gently pushed back on that after losing Gausman.
"It's a fair question. Everybody could use more top-of-the-rotation options," he said just before the lockout. "We had those two guys starting games one and two for us last year, but I think we feel like some of the other options that we have could emerge and be part of that scenario. Some of the starting pitchers that are still available in free agency and trade could be part of that, but again, I think we just try to build the best roster that we can. Even if you look at teams in the postseason there are different compositions of teams in terms of their strengths, in terms of the relative strength of their rotation and the relative strength at the top of their rotations."
No matter how you label it, the Giants do need to add more pitching, but they should be sitting pretty when the lockout ends. There are going to be a lot of veteran starters just hoping to get into camp in time to make a rotation, and nobody has a better recent track record on one-year deals than Zaidi and Harris. They can try to replace Gausman with the next Gausman.
RELATED: Remembering Giants pitchers' memorable at-bats before DH begins
A higher-upside arm could also come via the trade market. The A's (Sean Manaea, Chris Bassitt and Frankie Montas) and Reds (Luis Castillo, Sonny Gray, Tyler Mahle) stand out as teams expected to make starting pitching available.
After the next starter is signed, expect the Giants to keep adding by targeting pitchers who could also work out of the bullpen or be optioned to Triple-A. It'll be a long season coming off a short spring, so it's a lock that Zaidi and Harris keep stocking up as they did last year with late moves for Sanchez and Kazmir.