It has been slightly less than a week since the San Fransisco Giants made the Johnny Cueto signing official. He signed for 6 years $130 million to be the Giants #2 guy behind Madison Bumgarner, but Cueto may have also been a pity signing. Knowing that the Dodgers were going after the World Series champ, and San Fran already have inked Jeff Samardzija to a contract, the Giants may have gotten Cueto just so their rival in LA wouldn’t sign the righty. However, whether that was the main reason or not, Johnny will be a pretty significant piece to the Giants rotation.
There is no doubt that Jeff Samardzija is now on the best team to improve himself, and has a lot of upside to be a lethal #2 behind MadBum, but looking over his performance in 2015, there is a lot of risk. From 2011-2014 Cueto put up flashy numbers as an ace with Cincy, so to have Johnny backing up Bumgarner in the rotation, makes San Fran feel more comfortable going for it all in 2016. Johnny Cueto’s campaign in 2014 was nothing short of terrific, as he finsihed 2nd in the CY Young voting behind no other than Clayton Kershaw. From 2011-2014 Cueto compiled a record of 53-23 with an ERA of 2.49, while leading the league in K’s over the course of the 2014 season robbing Kershaw of a pitching triple crown. Aside from starting only 11 games in 2013, Cueto had a quality start percentage between 70-85%, respectively. For most of his career, he has been known to throw over 100 pitches per game with under 4 runs of support from the offense. With a down year in 2015, Cueto is sure to bounce back in 2016 with Bochey as his manager while pitching in AT&T Park.
But, in the end, with the abundance of pitchers to chose from in the rotation, and the possibility of Matt Cain returning to top form, were the Giants really pursuing Cueto for a while? The D-backs certainly were not in on Greinke until the last minute, so that clearly was to not only better their team, but to spite division foes. Was the Cueto signing the Giants shot at helping to gut the Dodgers’ rotation?
