The Giants’ pitching problem has been impossible to ignore, and it starts with a simple truth: too many bats are getting free passes.
San Francisco finished with a 7.58 K/9 rate, 27th in MLB in 2026, and a 3.75 BB/9 walk rate that ranked 25th. That combination is brutal. The staff isn’t overwhelming hitters, and it isn’t consistently throwing strikes either.
Andrew Baggarly recently spoke with Buster Posey about what went wrong, and Posey made it clear where his frustration sat. “Walks killed us.
Killed us,” he told Baggarly, “If we're going to get beat at the big-league level, I'd rather that we're giving up damage in the strike zone versus losing to walks.” That feeling has been familiar to anyone watching Giants pitchers miss the zone, put runners on, and watch those innings unravel.
If the Giants want to fix that flaw, they need arms that know where the ball is going. Shota Imanaga fits that idea better than most, and he’d cost a lot less than Tarik Skubal.
Imanaga was on San Francisco’s radar before he signed with the Cubs ahead of the 2024 season. Since then, he has logged three years in Chicago and posted a 3.45 ERA with a 1.04 WHIP across 492.1 innings. He’s 33 now and coming off a season that was more good than great, which should still leave him in range for teams that need dependable pitching without diving into the deepest part of the market.
The draw with Imanaga is control. His reputation has long been built on throwing strikes, which is a trait the Giants badly need.
He has a 23.6 career K%, a little better than league average, but his 4.6 BB% stands well above the MLB average of 8.5%. In Oracle Park, where keeping the ball in the yard matters and putting hitters on base is dangerous, that profile makes plenty of sense.
Another point in his favor: he already accepted a qualifying offer before the 2026 season, so a team signing him would not have to surrender a draft pick.
Jim Bowden of The Athletic listed the Giants, Cubs, and Astros as the most likely landing spots for Imanaga.
San Francisco’s interest would also fit with a broader organizational push. The team was linked to Imanaga three years ago, and looking back, that would have been a smart move.
There’s also the matter of the Japanese market, where the Dodgers have built a major edge. The Jung Hoo Lee signing was partly about his appeal in South Korea, and he has been a transformative addition in that respect.
Imanaga may not be the kind of arm you hand the ball to in Game Two of a postseason series without hesitation, but he would deepen a staff that needs more dependable options. The Giants could even land Imanaga and Kevin Gausman, for example, for about the same price as Skubal. Adding Gausman would also carry some public-relations value, since his departure to Toronto remains one of the biggest complaints Giants fans have had about Farhan Zaidi’s tenure.
For a veteran left-hander who throws strikes and keeps innings from spiraling, Imanaga makes a lot of sense for the Giants.
In Other News...
Giants Rotation Collapse Made Two Arms Matter More Than Ever
The Giants spent much of the 2026 season trying to patch together a starting rotation that never really settled in, and the result showed up in the standings. Fourteen different pitchers made starts for San Francisco, a number that speaks to how often the club had to improvise just to get through the year. Amid all that churn, Logan Webb and Landen Roupp stood out as the only two starters to get beyond 155 innings, giving the staff a rare sense of durability even as the group around them kept changing.
Webb still carried the kind of workload the Giants have come to expect, though his numbers dipped some from his usual standard, while Roupp emerged as a steady presence in a season where steadiness was hard to find. For a team that needed reliable innings every week, those two arms became even more important than their raw totals suggested. The larger question for San Francisco is how much support they can finally build around them after a year when the rotation never came close to holding together. [Read more 🡒]
Buster Poseys Pitching Stance Raises A Serious Giants Question
Buster Poseys offseason message to the Giants was not exactly subtle: if the organization wants better pitching, it may have to lean harder on the arms it already has. The president of baseball operations said he is willing to push pitchers to their limits in training, treating injury risk as part of the modern game rather than a reason to pull back, and he paired that view with a broader call for the Giants to improve by developing young arms while also bringing in better talent from outside the organization.
It is the kind of stance that can define a front office as much as a roster move, especially for a club that has already adjusted parts of its coaching staff and added young pitching help in 2026 to support the plan. The bigger question is whether the Giants can balance that aggressive philosophy with the reality of keeping pitchers healthy long enough for it to matter, a line every contender likes to talk about but few are eager to test for long. [Read more 🡒]
Giants May Be Turning To Daniel Susac Sooner Than Expected
Daniel Susacs first year with the Giants already gave the club a clearer picture of what it has behind the plate. Acquired after being selected by the Twins in the 2025 Rule 5 draft and immediately flipped to San Francisco, he broke camp on the 2026 Opening Day roster and quickly showed why the organization was willing to keep him close. In 53 games, Susac hit .243 while drawing praise for his defense, a combination that helped stabilize the catching picture before his season was cut short by a left knee patella fracture.
Now the focus shifts to how soon the Giants can count on him again. Susac is expected to be ready for the 2027 season, and the bigger question is how quickly he can move from promising option to the clubs primary catcher. With his defensive work already standing out and the bat showing enough to keep him in the conversation, the Giants may be looking at a much more important role for him sooner than expected. [Read more 🡒]