The big news Friday when it came to the NL West was the Diamondbacks swooping in and signing ace Zack Greinke before the Dodgers or Giants could. Saturday, the Giants swiftly moved on, inking free agent starter Jeff Samardzija to a five-year deal worth $90 million, per CBS Sports MLB Insider Jon Heyman.
Samardzija, 30, was 11-13 with a 4.96 ERA (79 ERA+), 1.29 WHIP and 163 strikeouts in 214 innings for the White Sox last season. He led the majors in hits and earned runs allowed while leading the AL in home runs allowed. Simply, it was a disaster of a contract year. Or so it seemed. The Giants have looked past that and “Shark” has gotten his long-term deal.
Samardzija showed frontline potential in 2014, making the All-Star team and posting a 2.99 ERA and 1.07 WHIP in 219 2/3 innings. He’s also proven himself durable, posting 213-plus innings in each of the past three seasons. Given that he wasn’t a starter until 2012, he’s got a real young arm for his age, too, as he’s only logged 991 2/3 career innings (by point of comparison, fellow 30-year-old David Price has thrown 1,441 2/3).
Further, the pitch use of Samardzija curiously changed in his time with the White Sox. Most notably, he became much more reliant on his cutter at the expense of his sinker. At least partially as a result, his groundball rate tumbled from 50.2 percent in 2014 to 39 percent last season. With more fly balls, more flew out of the yard.
On the flip side, Samardzija missed a lot fewer bats in 2015, striking out only 17.9 percent of his batters faced, down from around 23-24 percent the previous several years. There was a downtick in velocity, too.
Samardzija slots second in the San Francisco rotation behind Madison Bumgarner, with Matt Cain, Jake Peavy and Chris Heston filling it out for the time being.
Jeff Samardzija has signed with the Giants. (USATSI)
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