San Francisco Giants Young Starter Performing Better Than Numbers Suggest

A young San Francisco Giants pitcher looks to have gotten off to a slow start, but advanced stats say otherwise.

Apr 8, 2025; San Francisco, California, USA; San Francisco Giants starting pitcher Landen Roupp (65) throws against the Cincinnati Reds during the first inning at Oracle Park. | John Hefti-Imagn Images

One of the reasons that the San Francisco Giants have gotten off to such a strong start in the 2025 MLB regular season is how good their pitching staff has been.

Logan Webb and Robbie Ray have been an excellent one-two punch to begin the campaign, throwing 39.1 innings with 39 strikeouts and a 2.75 ERA.

They are anchoring the rotation currently with Jordan Hicks, Justin Verlander and Landen Roupp struggling to find their footing out of the gate. Those three have 49 innings pitched but 32 earned runs allowed.

Some of that has been self-inflicted damage, as Hicks and Verlander are walking too many batters with BB/9 ratios of 3.5 and 4.3, respectively. Ray’s an even higher 5.9, but he has managed to limit damage thus far.

There are some concerns about the performance of Hicks and Verlander out of the gate, but Roupp’s slow start, based on some of his raw statistics, don’t paint the entire picture.

His advanced numbers suggest that he has been throwing the ball a lot better than his ERA shows that he has been.

His 4.80 ERA isn’t pretty, but he has a FIP of 2.62, which insinuates that the inflated number is partially due to some bad luck or things outside of his control. Walks are playing a part, as he has issued seven in 15 innings, a 4.2 BB/9 ratio.

That has led to an inflated 1.600 WHIP as well, allowing 17 hits in that span.

Cutting down on the walks will be key to his numbers turning around in every facet. But, he has been stellar out of the gate, as shared by Michael Salfino of The Athletic (subscription required).

“He has an ERA of 4.80 but an xERA of 2.57, and his K% is right at 30% (29.9% is top 20 in MLB). His walk rate is high, and that’s troubling, but it’s not radically high. I’d expect it to be marginally inflated relative to average for the rest of the year, maybe one percentage point higher than the league average,” he wrote.

Through 15 innings, Roupp has struck out 20 batters. In two out of his three starts, he has reached the eight-strikeout mark despite not pitching more than five innings in either of those outings.

His average exit velocity of 85.6 mph and hard-hit rate of 27.5% are both excellent numbers, better than the league average.

The .410 batting average on balls in play is also an unsustainable number. Once that begins regressing to the mean of .290, his overall numbers will begin to increase with fewer opponents getting on base.

It is only a matter of time until Roupp’s raw stats begin to reflect his performance based on advanced stats.