San Francisco Giants Still Have Confidence in Young Pitcher Despite Demotion

Heading into spring training, one of the positional battles that people were keeping a close eye on at San Francisco Giants camp was for the final spot in their starting rotation.

Kyle Harrison, Hayden Birdsong, Landen Roupp and Keaton Winn were all competing for the No. 5 role behind Logan Webb, Justin Verlander, Robbie Ray and Jordan Hicks.

Entering camp, it looked as if Harrison had a leg up on the competition.

He was coming off a solid rookie year with the Giants in 2024, making 24 starts as he spent the entire campaign in the Big Leagues. Across 124.1 innings he had a 4.56 ERA with 118 strikeouts, showing flashes of what made him one of the top prospects in the game.

Harrison entered August with a 3.69 ERA and before two shaky starts to end the campaign, in which he surrendered 11 earned runs, his ERA was a 4.00.

That was a very encouraging performance by a player who turned only 23 years old in August and had only 69 starts and 279.1 innings of work in the minor leagues before being promoted to the Big Leagues.

However, there was two major difference between his performances in the minors and MLB; his velocity and strikeouts.

On the farm, Harrison was blowing opponents away, registering a 14.6 K/9 and pushing his velocity into the mid-high 90s.

While in the Major Leagues, his velocity has been sitting regularly in the low 90s, touching 94 periodically. That has led to only an 8.7 K/9 at that level and some concerning performances during spring training.

While Harrison wasn’t worried about the lack of velocity, it ultimately came back to bite him.

His performance was underwhelming across 6.2 innings of work, surrendering 13 hits with one walk and eight earned runs, resulting in an ugly 10.80 ERA. One encourgaing development was that he had the strikeouts going again, registering nine.

He was beaten out by both Roupp and Birdsong, as they earned the No. 5 role and a spot in the rotation, respectively.

Despite the demotion, the organization still has plenty of confidence in Harrison and are hoping he can get back on track in Triple-A to begin the year.

"We think the world of Kyle," president of baseball operations Buster Posey said, via Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area. "It's a disappointment for him, but we still have belief in a bright future for him. It's a luxury to have the amount of arms that we have, and it is difficult to have to send somebody of his stature down, but I'm hopeful that he uses this as an opportunity to just continue his growth and developing pitches and just his overall aptitude as a Major League pitcher."

While this certainly isn’t how Harrison envision his 2025 starting, the opportunity to pitch at the Major League level this year could still present itself.

Should the opportunity present itself, he needs to showcase he is worthy of that spot as he will be facing some tough competition in Triple-A from Winn, Tristan Beck, Mason Black and Carson Whisenhunt.

Recommended Articles