Not surprising and maybe not even disappointing as the 22-year old works out his major league career.
This afternoon, the San Francisco Giants announced that LHP Kyle Harrison has been placed on the 15-day IL with left shoulder inflammation. Per this Alex Pavlovic post, the move will end his 2024 season:
Kyle Harrison went on the IL with left shoulder inflammation. The velocity has been down at times in second half, so Giants will shut him down and prepare for 2025. Austin Warren was recalled.
— Alex Pavlovic (@PavlovicNBCS) September 6, 2024
Harrison made 24 starts and pitched 124.1 innings with a 4.56 ERA (4.35 FIP) and a 7-7 record. He made his major league debut last season, making 7 starts while posting a 4.15 ERA. in 34.2 IP. That followed 21 starts and 67.2 IP in the minor leagues (20 starts & 65.2 innings of which were with the River Cats) for a total of 102.1 IP. So, a 22-inning increase from last season, which is reasonable. Of course, injuries last year limited his innings (he pitched 113 the year before), but it was still a jump for a young arm who was drafted straight out of high school.
But he’s also one of the pitching prospects who were managed in the trendy style of 3-4 inning bursts, the thinking being that you protect the arms for the more important major league work. The old school counterargument is that in keeping the body healthier longer, the pitcher is actually more vulnerable as they learn not just how to face major league hitters but to manage their own body, both in stress situations and the grind of a season.
It feels like a collision of all these factors — age, inexperience, health — and to cap it off, a switch in coaching philosophy, from Brian Bannister & Andrew Bailey to Bryan Price and a bucket of dirt to rub on his elbow after the game (or maybe the bucket is a bowl). So, it’s hard to imagine what Harrison’s future will be. Is he a back of the rotation guy? Long reliever? Lefty specialist?
There was a lot of crowing about him throughout the season mainly becaues he’s not Madison Bumgarner nor Matt Cain nor Tim Lincecum. Few pitchers are, and that’s why the Giants have struggled so much over the past decade (750-747 since the start of 2015). But, I don’t think that’s reason to give up on his prospects. While it’s true that he wasn’t very good this season (0.8 fWAR – 26th among left-handed pitchers, min. 100 IP), the strikeout rate is solid, the walks aren’t disastrous — though could stand to improve — and he was able to lower his home run rate. 8 of the 18 he allowed came over his final 6 starts when it was already clear he was out of gas.
Back in January, we all tried to piece together the Giants’ SP innings workload to see if we could reverse engineer the team’s thinking about how they would get through the 1,400 innings or so that they’d need. I put Harrison at 120, so the season is ending at the right time for him; but, we all agree it’s one that’s going out with a whimper instead of a bang.
We saw him tweak mechanics to deal with velocity issue and according to Statcast, not only did a he lose a full mile per hour off his fastball, but all his other pitches lost spin. Some of that is attributable to sampling (he simply pitched more innings this year than last) while some very clearly is not. Still, not’s get too histrionic. We’re a month and a half out from his second ever start in Coors Field, which featured a bit of history:
Kyle Harrison of the @SFGiants is the first visiting pitcher ever to have 2 scoreless starts of 5.0+ innings at Coors Field in the same season.
He did it as a 22-year-old rookie. pic.twitter.com/Zd6nDdjnVs
— OptaSTATS (@OptaSTATS) July 20, 2024
The start after that saw him clobber the Rockies again but in Oracle Park (11 K in 6.2 IP). That came on July 26th and wound up concluding the peak of his season. He ended the night with 18 starts under belt. The Giants were 12-6 in them, he was 6-4 and had a 3.69 ERA (3.90 FIP) and 90 K in 97.2 IP. Just 33 walks, too. 3:1 strikeouts to walk is in the Kevin Gausman-Hunter Greene-Framber Valdez zone of starter quality. That’s a new benchmark for him.
He’s just 1 of 31 left-handed pitchers to throw at least 100 innings this season — in fact, he, Joey Estes, and Paul Skenes are the youngest pitchers to throw at least 100 innings this season (all 22); so, the Giants have thrown him into the deep end. Can they help him learn how to swim to shore en route?
RHP Austin Warren, who has definitely, 100% already appeared with the Giants this season (2 scoreless innings), was recalled from Triple-A to take Harrison’s spot on the roster. He had a 5.73 ERA in 22 IP with the River Cats. He pitched for the Angels previously, and in 33 career appearances and 40 IP had a 3.55 ERA (3.75 FIP).