SAN FRANCISCO — The San Francisco Giants landed a top-tier starting pitcher to complement ace Madison Bumgarner, acquiring free agent Jeff Samardzija with a $90 million, five-year contract Saturday — just a day after losing out on Zack Greinke, who accepted a six-year, $206.5 million deal to pitch for the Arizona Diamondbacks.
The Giants said their acquisition of Samardzija, 30, will be formally announced once the Notre Dame product passes a physical that is scheduled for Tuesday.
“You look at his track record, you look at the presence that he brings to the mound, you look at the back-to-back-to-back 200-plus innings seasons, you realize that this guy is a force to be reckoned with,” said Giants general manager Bobby Evans. “There’s a reason we targeted him. There’s a reason we focused on him as one of our top priorities.”
It was a blockbuster week for free-agent pitchers. David Price joined the Boston Red Sox by signing a $217 million, seven-year contract, and Greinke chose the Diamondbacks over the Giants and the three-time defending National League West champion Los Angeles Dodgers, his former team.
When asked about seeing Greinke join the Diamondbacks over the archrival Dodgers, Evans quipped: “Victory would have been the American League or Japan.”
Samardzija won 11 games this year for the Chicago White Sox for his first double-digit victory total in eight major-league seasons, going 11-13 with a 4.96 ERA in 32 starts. The spent the second half of the 2014 season pitching in the Bay Area with the Oakland Athletics after his trade from the Chicago Cubs. His 214 innings pitched in 2015 were the second-highest total of his career.
“This guy’s a horse. Even in tough times in what they were doing in Chicago, he still put 200-plus innings on the board,” Evans said.
