The Giants are "among the teams" considering longtime NPB ace Tomoyuki Sugano, MLB Network’s Jon Morosi writes. The 35-year-old is a full free agent and is expected to sign with a major league club this winter on the heels of 12 outstanding seasons with the baseball world’s other Giants franchise, the 22-time Japan Series champion Yomiuri Giants. Signing Sugano would be an intriguing move for the San Francisco version of the Giants in Buster Posey’s first offseason as the club’s president of baseball operations.
Logan Webb, Robbie Ray and Kyle Harrison are assured of rotation jobs, Jordan Hicks will be in the mix if the Giants want to use him as a starter again, and a variety of less-experienced younger arms (i.e. Landen Roupp, Hayden Birdsong, Mason Black, Keaton Winn and top prospect Carson Whisenhunt) are also vying for rotation.
While Sugano would obviously be a rookie in terms of MLB experience, he does bring more overall seasoning than most of San Francisco’s in-house rotation candidates. If the Giants chose to accommodate Sugano by adopting a six-man rotation to emulate the Japanese standard of pitchers starting once per week, such an arrangement might also help manage the innings of the younger pitchers, though Webb or Ray might prefer a more traditional five-man schedule. Due mostly to his age, MLBTR projected Sugano for a one-year, $12M contract this winter, though a two-year pact certainly seems feasible.
Such a relatively inexpensive deal might be of par.
