Giants right-hander Ross Stripling has the ability to return to free agency this offseason, as he can opt out of a $12.5MM salary for next year. However, the 33-year-old indicated this evening that he doesn’t anticipate heading back to the open market.
Stripling rather frankly told the team’s beat he “hasn’t pitched well enough to opt out” (relayed by Maria Guardado of MLB.com). While a blunt self-assessment, it’s not an especially surprising declaration. The veteran hurler has a 5.29 ERA over 78 1/3 innings on the season. That’s well off the 3.01 earned runs per nine which Stripling had allowed during his final year with the Blue Jays.
While he wasn’t especially overpowering even during his best seasons in Toronto, Stripling has lost a couple percentage points off his strikeout rate. He has still been one of the league’s best at avoiding free passes but has proven far too home run prone. Stripling has allowed 2.30 homers per nine, well above last year’s 0.80 HR/9 figure. Stripling had been susceptible to the longball in both 2020 and ’21.
In addition to the inconsistent production, Stripling has spent the past three weeks on the injured list with a back strain. It’s his second such IL stay of the year. He has expressed a bit of frustration with his status, telling reporters over the weekend he feels the club is keeping him on the IL beyond when he’s healthy enough to return because the team is reluctant to bump someone else off the roster. He reiterated today that he believes he’s ready for a return after throwing 50 pitches in a batting practice session.
Stripling is one of a handful of San Francisco players whose contracts have upcoming player options. Michael Conforto has an $18MM provision, while Sean Manaea will need to decide whether to retain a $12.5MM salary. Neither of those cases are as straightforward as Stripling’s, but both seem likely to return to San Francisco themselves. Conforto started slowly offensively. He’d seemed to find his stride midseason but has missed the past few weeks with a hamstring strain. Manaea lost his rotation spot early on and has worked mostly in multi-inning relief. Despite a solid 27.2% strikeout rate, he owns an even 5.00 ERA through 93 2/3 frames.
I’m sorry but I need a BS reason not the real one.
Breaking News: The sky is still blue!
Giants fans can only hope that both Manaea and Conforto opt out, though it’s doubtful they will. Neither is worth the money owed, but at least Conforto has an excuse after a year away, and his play in the outfield has been quite good. His power numbers, however, are a big disappointment. Manaea on the other hand is simply too inconsistent to be useful to SF, especially with so many talented arms coming from the Giants minor leagues.
Maybe SF’s park has something to do with the power loss? I haven’t looked at the statcast numbers, but I’ve heard that the park isn’t homer friendly (Barry Bonds and his roids notwithstanding).
rememberthecoop — That’s no longer the case since the fences were changed. It’s now considered a “neutral park,” although I ‘d guess most people think of it still as SLIGHTLY pro pitcher.
Oracle has become more neutral since the changes to the park. Up to last season Statcast had them at a 100 park factor on the 3 year rolling average. Their tough go with the bats this season has dropped that 3 year average to 98. That’s similar to the Yankee’s, Brewer’s and Marlin’s parks. But that’s a pretty good indication how bad they’ve hit this season.
But it still remains a tough place for HRs, even before this season. For overall hitting it’s pretty good for 2Bs and 3Bs, mostly top 10s, but for HRs only the Pirates and Tigers play in tougher parks. Even without the struggles of this season, up to last season the 3 year average ranked them 27th for HRs.
2021 SF Giants Home & Away Home Runs:
Home — 104
Away — 137 (in about 200 more ABs)
I guess I don’t see the enormous difference that Oracle has regarding HRs. Seems a touch pitcher friendly but not massively.
IMO that 33 HR difference is significant in only 200 more ABs. They would have to hit a HR in about every 6 home ABs to tie the road number. The difference in ABs is primarily due to the home team not hitting in the bottom of the 9th with a lead.
Plus, not sure 2021 is a good year to look at. They hit far more HRs that year (241) than they did last season (183) or in 2019 (167). This year they’ve hit 158, on pace to hit 178. It was fairly even in 2022 with 97 HRs on the road, and 86 at home (134 fewer ABs), but 2019 was lopsided with 104 road HRs, and 63 at home (129 fewer ABs). They would have needed to hit a HR in just over every 3 home ABs to tie.
Admittedly I don’t know how Statcast computes the park factors to arrive at a score of 100 for neutral, but their factor for HRs for Oracle is pretty bad. Again on a 3 year average the park factor for HRs is 83. By contrast GABP has a 132.
Jean Matrac — I guess my point was that while Oracle may depress HRs a bit (the wind is mostly the issue), I don’t think it’s the mausoleum for HRs that fans make it out to be.
But as you can see, the totals for home/away vary from year to year.
Oracle isn’t the worst place for HRs, but it’s still far from being even neutral. The totals do vary, but it’s consistent in that the road totals always exceed the home number, sometimes greatly.
Team performance does effect the park factor. Teams that hit a lot HRs will elevate the HR park factor somewhat, so it isn’t just the park. But even isolating 2021, when the Giants hit the most HRs in the NL and ranked 2nd in all of MLB, their HR park factor was 85. Last year with their HRs greatly reduced from the year before, the HR park factor was 74. That is a very bad number.
@Pete’sView: Nice assessment.
Duh.
He is 0-5. Opting out of 12.5 million dollar year has never crossed his mind.
Not due to his record but his ERA and other stats. Never judge a pitcher by his W-L record. That went out with batting average. Too many variables beyond a pitchers’ control to assign a win or a loss – run support, defense, quality of the reliever replacing him, etc.
That’s my point; I’m not particularly happy about that. But he IS tradable.
Its refreshing to hear a player say they weren’t good enough to opt out
Yeah, it’s kind of refreshing.
Very. Some rare humility.
BaseballisLife — Perhaps, but the point is the club is paying him more than he’s worth—in some cases, a lot more. This is certainly true about Manaea (and Stripling).
Tough decision there.
Neither are the other two guys Farhan gave those stupid contracts to.
Says the expert who was pushing to re-sign Rodon for a long term high value deal.
Oh well. You just might have to quit on them again next year.
Stripling contract is fine. A minor irritation at best. If he doesn’t perform he is gone in another 12 months. The beauty of Farhans method with pitching. When the inevitable volatility hits you, it’s short term pain.
Between Manaea and Strip, I’d much rather have Stripling next year. Also glad to wave goodbye to Alex Wood; I’d hoped for so much more from him.
Striplings the equivalent of having really average Mexican food. Fills your belly but you’re left wondering why you wasted your money on that
That could be true for any food, not just Mexican. But I get the point. Good analogy.
I’ve had sensational Mexican food and really basic, really mid food and it’s completely disappointing.
For me, the quality is based on the the chile rellenos.If they don’t pass the test, I visit that restaurant no more.
Chile rellenos is a good yardstick, usually my wife’s choice, but for me it’s the chile verde.
But take into account what Bellinger got as a rebound candidate last offseason – 17M. And he was coming off of 2 horrible seasons. Yeah, I know he has the MVP, but when I say he was horrible, I mean almost unplayable (except for defense). That turned out exceedingly well for the Cubs, though that’s not the point. At the time, I was against it. Thought it was an overpay. Man, was I wrong. Now he’s gonna get something like 7 years, 210M.
Would be the next big albatross contract for someone, so expecting the Padres, Angels and Mets to be in the running
Of course he won’t opt-out because he has zero chance at anything other than a minor league invite to training camp somewhere next winter
Lucky us
How about if all us fans say PLEASE
Hope he gives Pete Walker a couple of million for getting him set for life.
Darn
HUGE surprise! NOT
And to think how his career started against these very Giants. Robert’s unbelievable decision to yank im him in the 9th
What would have been really crazy would have been if he opted out because he had a bad season. -that he didn’t feel like he should get paid that high level again until he can prove it. Crazy.
As crazy as a team giving a rookie $10 million because he provided more than that in surplus value
I suck, therefor I opt in. Giants rolled those dice on Rodon and won. Came up snake eyes on Stripling. Lady luck is a fickle wench.
With these player options, teams don’t win, you either lose a great player or get stuck with an ineffective one.
Might say they’re in much the same conundrum with Conforto and Manaea—especially Manaea!
The opt-out clauses Zaidi gave to players may come back to haunt him.
Stripling says he hasn’t pitched well enough to opt-out. Stripling can stick it to Zaidi by coming back next season as a reminder of the phantom IL stint Zaidi has kept him on.
Being on the phantom IL is on Stripling.
Thank you, I was just about to say that. I’m tired of guys making millions, not producing and then whining about it (Looking at you Alex Wood).
I am just amazed that players of that caliber even have the leverage to get a player option. Like why not a straight one year deal? How do the Giants benefit from those player options, if they had good seasons, they would opt out. Is it for the draft pick or qualifying offer? I am confused. Anyone smarter than me get why teams offer player options?
It’s not unilateral. If all a team offers a guy is a straight 1-year deal, they probably aren’t going to sign that player. Pitching is in short supply and it’s a seller’s market. A player option is a big incentive to get a player to sign, who otherwise might sign somewhere else where he can get that option.
A straight 1-year deal might be ideal for teams, but players want as many years as they can get. Zaidi doesn’t like long-term deals for pitchers, so opt-outs work for limiting the length of a contract.