{"id":780442,"date":"2017-12-27T11:37:09","date_gmt":"2017-12-27T16:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesportsdaily.com\/?p=780442"},"modified":"2017-12-27T11:37:09","modified_gmt":"2017-12-27T16:37:09","slug":"san-francisco-giants-johnny-cueto-rebound-in-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesportsdaily.com\/news\/san-francisco-giants-johnny-cueto-rebound-in-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"The San Francisco Giants Really Need Johnny Cueto to Rebound in 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"
Major League Baseball’s offseason has been slow overall, but the San Francisco Giants have been doing their best to be active following a 98-loss campaign.<\/p>\n
If you thought they’d go through some kind of rebuild after such a disappointing 2017, they’re doing the complete opposite. Acquiring veteran third baseman<\/a> Evan Longoria<\/a> from the Tampa Bay Rays officially signals they’re going for it with their current core in place, but they’ve still got a lot of work to do with this roster.<\/p>\n One of the things they’ll be hoping for is starting pitching Johnny Cueto<\/a> resembling more like the 2016 version of himself instead of the 2017 version. After going 18-5 with a 2.79 ERA, 22.5% strikeout rate, and 5.1% walk rate in 219.2 innings of work during his first year in San Francisco, those numbers dropped to 8-8, 4.52, 21.0%, and 8.2%, respectively. He went from a career-high 5.5 fWAR while being part of a lethal one-two punch with Madison Bumgarner<\/a> to a much more normal 1.2 fWAR.<\/p>\n Now that he’ll be with the organization for the duration of his six-year, $130 million contract after deciding against opting out this winter, what are some areas he’ll need to improve upon heading into 2018?<\/p>\n Cueto threw his fastball just 51.2% of the time in 2017, and with a 53.7% usage rate of that pitch throughout his career, we can see that a lot of his success has been predicated on the effectiveness of his secondary pitches. The right-hander’s four-seam fastball wasn’t nearly as good as it’s been in the past (76 wRC+ against in ’16, 112 wRC+ against in ’17), but the bigger dips in performance came via other popular pitches in his arsenal.<\/p>\n The below table shows how the walk rate (BB%), strikeout rate (K%), wOBA, and wRC+ have changed over the past two seasons with regard to his sinker, slider, and changeup.<\/p>\nDecline in Secondary Offerings<\/h3>\n