How Bailey sees Giants’ young starters taking next step in 2025 originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
SCOTTSDALE — At the MLB Winter Meetings in December, Buster Posey noted how much faith he has in the Giants’ young pitching. That was part of the messaging after Justin Verlander signed, too, and during the FanFest tour and the early days of camp at Scottsdale Stadium.
Through the first couple weeks of Cactus League games, the Giants certainly feel like they were right to have that much faith.
Kyle Harrison made his spring debut on Friday and threw two scoreless innings, and Hayden Birdsong followed with two of his own. Throw in Landen Roupp, who has been as good as anyone thus far, and the three young starters competing for the fifth spot have allowed just seven hits and one run in 11 combined innings while striking out 17.
There’s room for just one of the three at the end of camp, and then the Giants will have to decide whether the others fill out the bullpen or stay stretched out as part of the Triple-A rotation. Regardless, all three are expected to have big roles in 2025.
The Giants had nine different players make at least seven starts last season, including No. 4 starter Jordan Hicks, who again will have his innings watched, and reliever Erik Miller, who “opened” 10 games. Manager Bob Melvin doesn’t intend to use any openers this year, so when those gaps pop up, the Giants will turn to the young pitchers who don’t win a rotation spot this spring, along with others like the Carson Whisenhunt, Carson Ragsdale, Carson Seymour or Mason Black, who are waiting in the wings.
Posey is excited about what the group will bring in future years, but it’ll be needed in 2025, too. The easiest way for the Giants to exceed expectations might be for a couple of the young pitchers to take a leap, and on Monday’s “Giants Talk,” catcher Patrick Bailey broke down what needs to happen for each of the top three guys to reach the next level.
Kyle Harrison
The lefty had a 4.56 ERA and 4.33 FIP as a rookie, but the numbers were much better before he hurt his ankle. Lacking rotation depth, the Giants rushed Harrison back without a rehab assignment; his ERA was 3.96 before the injury and 5.55 after, and it wasn’t hard to figure out what had changed.
Harrison pitches primarily off his four-seamer but compensating for the ankle discomfort led to shoulder inflammation and his velocity dipped in the second half. Now fully healthy, he’ll again lean heavily on his fastball.
“That’s his best pitch, and when it’s on, I would say one of the better pitches in the game,” Bailey said. “I think it’s hard as a young guy to kind of have to make those adjustments in the big leagues, and what he did last year kind of speaks to his skill to be able to maybe be a little bit lighter velo but still go out and keep us in every game that he threw last year.”
Harrison learned a lot in his first full season and, like Bailey, the staff believes he showed that he can compete without his best stuff. But to take that next step, he’ll need the fastball to return to form.
“It’s a huge difference, especially for guys pitching off their fastball. Velocity is king,” Bailey said. “You’re able to be not as perfect, not as fine with your pitches, and you’re able to throw more strikes.”
Hayden Birdsong
The right-hander flirted with 99 mph in his first spring outing, showing the kind of stuff that should lead him to one day pace this staff in strikeouts. He had 88 of them in 72 innings as a rookie, including 12 in a memorable start at Coors Field and 11 in just 4 1/3 innings on the final day of the season. Birdsong also walked 43, and that rate will need to come down this season.
For his catcher, there’s no question about how to find the next level. Bailey said with Birdsong, it’s all about “how many strikes he can throw.” So far this spring, he has been around the zone much more often.
“I think he has got some of the best stuff in the game,” Bailey said. “He’s a really, really good competitor and it’s just, trust the stuff. You’ve obviously seen that you’re going to get whiff in the big leagues and he can get the best hitters in the world to look silly. It’s just how many competitive pitches can he throw.”
Landen Roupp
In five innings this spring, Roupp has allowed one hit, walked one and struck out eight. He’s doing exactly what he did last spring, when he was so good that the staff had no choice but to put him in the Opening Day bullpen.
This time around, Roupp is pushing for a rotation spot, but it’s an uphill climb, in part because of how effective he was out of the bullpen last year. He threw just 76 2/3 innings in 2024, and if the Giants committed to starting him, they would at some point have to move him to the bullpen to manage his innings. The likelier path is that Roupp again begins the season as a reliever and then gets stretched out when the Giants need him to start.
“I think it’s just continuing to build off what he was doing last year. He might have finished up better than anybody we had, so (it’s) just continuing to believe that what he did and the success he had is real,” Bailey said. “His stuff is nasty, his stuff is really good. It’s just how many strikes can we get, can we get count leverage and kind of keep hitters on their heels.”
Roupp has one of the better curveballs in the game and threw it 44 percent of the time, but he’ll need a more varied arsenal when he starts games. Bailey said the changeup — which held hitters to a .111 average in a small sample last year — has been a revelation early in camp. “The changeup has been awesome,” he said.
“He’s thrown a couple right-on-right in live BPs and hitters have looked back like, ‘He’s not supposed to throw that one to us.’ I think he’s really confident in that.”
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