The Giants will select the contract of right-hander Daulton Jefferies prior to Sunday’s game against the Padres, manager Bob Melvin announced the team’s beat in tonight’s postgame session (X link via Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle). He’ll get the start. Since Jefferies isn’t on the 40-man roster and the Giants don’t have a vacancy, they’ll need to clear space.
It’ll be an emotional day for Jefferies, whose last MLB appearance came nearly two years ago as a member of the A’s — the only team for which he’s ever pitched. The 28-year-old righty has undergone both thoracic outlet surgery and Tommy John surgery (in that order) since walking off the mound that day. The two procedures were performed only months apart; Jefferies suffered a torn UCL while working back from that TOS operation. Considering that was the second Tommy John procedure of Jefferies’ career, his return to a big league mound is all the more remarkable.
The A’s selected Jefferies with the No. 37 overall pick back in 2016. He was long considered one of the system’s more promising arms, even after that first Tommy John procedure slowed his development. Between those two UCL surgeries, the TOS and the canceled 2020 minor league season, Jefferies has pitched only 231 2/3 professional innings — just 11 more than he pitched in his three-year college career at Cal.
Jefferies may not have a large volume of innings, but at least in the minors, the work he’s turned in has been strong. He sports a solid 3.93 ERA in his minor league career, with a strong 25.7% strikeout rate and a superlative 3.1% walk rate. He’s been roughed up for a 5.75 ERA in 56 1/3 big league innings, with far fewer missed bats in the majors but still very strong command (5.8% walk rate) and an above-average 45.5% ground-ball rate. Jefferies was excellent for the Giants this spring, pitching 14 innings and allowing just four runs (2.57 ERA) on 14 hits and three walks with 16 strikeouts.
Tomorrow’s appearance could go down as a spot start when all is said and done. The Giants currently have Logan Webb, Jordan Hicks, Kyle Harrison and Keaton Winn in the rotation. Reigning Cy Young winner Blake Snell, who signed late in spring training, tossed 74 pitches against Double-A hitters in an extended spring training game yesterday, tweets Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area. The quality of competition obviously wasn’t MLB-caliber, but Snell still punched out 11 batters in a four-inning appearance. The Giants are still determining his next step. It’s possible Snell will get a minor league start to finish off his tune-up, but it doesn’t sound like he’s too far from game readiness.
