Blake Snell Is Not The San Francisco Giants’ Only Impressive Lefty

SCOTTSDALE, AZ. – There’s a left-hander opening eyes and shutting down opponents for the San Francisco Giants – and his name is not Blake Snell.

It is rookie Kyle Harrison, slated to be in the rotation with Opening Day starter Logan Webb, hard-throwing Jordan Hicks, fellow rookie Keaton Winn and Snell. Veterans Alex Cobb and Robbie Ray, the 2021 American League Cy Young Award winner, are due back from injuries just before and after midseason, repectively.

Snell, 31, signed March 18 to a two-year, $62 million contract, is the reigning NL Cy Young winner. He also won the award in the AL in 2018. In those two years, he had a combined record of 35-14. In his other six seasons, his overall mark was just 36-41.

The Giants hope Harrison, 22, will eventually match Snell’s top-level work and do so consistently. They paid him first-round money, $2,497,500, as a third-round draft pick in 2020. That’s more than 54 of the 84 players chosen ahead of him received.

He’s now ranked as San Francisco’s top prospect and No. 23 overall by MLB Pipeline. This spring, he has a 2-0 record and 1.93 earned run average in three starts.

Harrison has a fastball in the 95 to 97-mph range, good slider and a changeup that fades out of the zone as it reaches the plate, where batters invariably are left flailing. In 69 games in the minors, the 6-2, 200-pounder has averaged 14.9 strikeouts per nine innings. That excellent rate gives him a fine 3-to-1 ratio of whiffs to walks. He has limited batters to 246 hits in 314 innings overall, including a seven-game, 34-inning trial in the majors last September.

Win With Winn

Winn, 26, recently returned from a sore elbow that sidelined him on February 21. He missed all of 2021 after Tommy John Surgery and the Giants understandably are being extra cautious with him.

The right-hander got a $500,000 signing bonus as reliever picked in the fifth round in 2018. After missing all of 2020 and 2021, his stuff has improved. His fastball went from 94 mph to 97, reaching 100 a few times. Combined with a low-80s splitter, he fools a lot of hitters.

The Giants liked his ratio of 35 strikeouts to eight walks over 42 1/3 innings when called up late last season. They figure his stuff can help the rotation now and may play even better out of the bullpen later this year should the rotation get overcrowded when Cobb and Ray return.

Three More Lefties – All Right!

The Giants have three other left-handed pitchers among their top 11 MLB Pipeline prospects – No. 3 Carson Whisenhunt, No. 9 Reggie Crawford and No. 11 Joe Whitman.

Crawford, 23, got a $2,297,500 signing bonus as the 30th pick overall in 2022 as a two-way player out of the University of Connecticut. He pitched only eight innings in college, where he batted .309 with 14 homers in 64 games as an outfielder-first baseman. He was drafted despite missing all of 2022 following Tommy John Surgery.

What did scouts see? How about striking out 30 of the 56 batters he faced in 13 2/3 innings total at UConn, Team USA and the Cape Cod League. In 13 baby-step starts last year totaling only 19 innings, he fanned 32 in the low minors.

The 6-4, 235-pounder has two elite power pitches: a fastball in the 94-99 mph range and tightly spinning slider around 84-88 mph. Now he needs to add some sort of off-speed pitch and build up his innings endurance.

Whisenhunt, 23, got a $1,866,220 signing bonus as the 66th overall choice in 2022 from East Carolina, where he only pitched in 13 games. For a change, scouts’ interest in him was not about an overpowering fastball – but his change. Many call it the best in the game right now and say that once the 6-3, 210-pounder learns to command his 92-94 fastball on both sides of the plate and develops a better curve, he will be a valuable starter.

He has struck out 97 and allowed only 43 hits in 66 1/3 innings with a 2.17 ERA in the minors.

Whitman, 22, needs a changeup to go with his 96-mph fastball and his best pitch, a low-80s slider with sharp break. The 6-5, 205-pounder signed for $805,575 out of Kent State as a second-round pick last July. He had 100 strikeouts and allowed only 63 hits and 29 walks in his final year in college, then kept right on flashing brilliance six short outings as a pro. In 9 2/3 innings, he fanned 13 and yielded four hits.

Leaning To The Left

With roughly 10% of the world’s population being left-handed, it is natural that pitching rotations rarely have more than one or two southpaws. Only four teams have had four. The first three all finished far back – the 1954 Washington Senators and 2013 and 2015 Chicago White Sox, whose team mascot was even nicknamed “Southpaw”.

In 2017, the Los Angeles Dodgers had four lefties make 101 starts. Clayton Kershaw (18-4), Alex Wood (16-3), Rich Hill (12-8) and Hyun-Jin Ryu (5-9) helped the Dodgers win the World Series. That made them the second club to win it all with a staff that had lefties starting more than 100 games.

The first was the 1965 Dodgers. Hall of Famer Sandy Koufax went 26-8 in 41 starts, Claude Osteen 15-15 in 40 starts and Johnny Podres 7-6 in 22 starts. Rookies Nick Willhite, Mike Kekich and veteran reliever Jim Brewer were lefties making nine spot starts for a total of 112.