Since the day AT&T Park was officially open for business, the San Francisco Giants have been an attractive destination for pitchers because the stadium plays as one of the most pitcher-friendly parks in all of baseball.
That undoubtedly played at least a part in right-hander Jake Peavy deciding to re-sign with the team this offseason, as he reached an agreement early Friday morning, per Ken Rosenthal of FoxSports.com.
The new contract is for two years and $24 million with a full no-trade clause, according to Jerry Crasnick of ESPN. He will earn $7 million in 2015 and $10 million in 2016 and receive a $4 million signing bonus.
That is right in line with the two-year, $23 million deal Tim Hudson signed with the team last season, and Peavy will now join Hudson and ace Madison Bumgarner atop a Giants rotation that still has some questions to answer at the back end.
Matt Cain is returning from offseason elbow surgery, Tim Lincecum has been far from reliable the past few seasons and Yusmeiro Petit has never been a member of the starting rotation for a full season.
Based on his performance after being traded to San Francisco from Boston in July, the decision to re-sign Peavy was an easy one for the Giants, as he proved to be as good of a pickup as higher-profile trade chips David Price and Jon Lester, if not better.
The big difference there is, while Price and Lester are fully expected to put up similar numbers over an entire season in 2015, asking Peavy to duplicate that performance would be wishful thinking at best.
At this point in his career, the 33-year-old is simply not the same dominant pitcher he was during his prime with the San Diego Padres, but he still has his moments.
At the same time, it’s probably fair to say that he’s a better pitcher than the guy who went 1-9 with a 4.72 ERA (4.80 FIP) in 20 starts with the Red Sox prior to being traded last year.
That’s where the AT&T Park part of all of this comes into play.
Sure, there were other reasons for Peavy to re-sign with the Giants, chief among them a chance to continue playing for manager Bruce Bochy.
“Bochy is like a father figure to me too,” Peavy told Darren Hartwell of NESN.com following last year’s trade. “Bochy had me at 20 years old; now 13 years later at 33, here we go again. I hope we have a lot of the same mojo that we had together in San Diego.”
At the end of the day, though, an extreme fly-ball pitcher like Peavy was never in the best position to succeed pitching in U.S. Cellular Field or Fenway Park.
For those of you not familiar with Park Factors, essentially a 1.000 rating means that a park is league-average in that area. Anything above 1.000 favors hitters, while anything below favors pitchers.
It’s also worth nothing that the Fenway Park home run rating was a bit skewed this past season by an anemic Red Sox offense. The 0.845 mark in 2013 and 1.088 mark in 2012 are more indicative of how that ballpark actually plays.
So just how extreme of a fly-ball pitcher is Peavy? Glad you asked.
The average home run-to-fly ball rate generally hovers right around 10 percent, and that’s the area where Peavy is in for perhaps the most regression this coming season.
His 10.6 percent HR/FB rate during his 20 starts with the Red Sox was right around where you would expect it to be, but his 2.4 percent HR/FB mark during his time with the Giants simply is not sustainable.
That being said, if Peavy is going to continue to succeed through that regression, AT&T Park gives him the best chance to do it.
In 20 career starts there, Peavy has gone 11-7 with a 3.21 ERA and a 1.230 WHIP and has allowed just eight home runs in 126 innings of work.
For the record, AT&T Park has ranked 30th, 28th, 30th and 30th in home run rate the past four seasons, according to ESPN Park Factors.
A fierce competitor and a terrific clubhouse presence, Peavy is a ballplayer in every sense of the word and a good fit for a Giants team that always seems to play with a chip on its shoulder.
Chances are he won’t come close to matching the numbers he put up post-trade in 2014, but there is no reason to think he can’t win double-digit games with an ERA well under 4.00, and AT&T Park should help him do just that.
All stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference, unless otherwise noted.
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