Pitcher Jeff Samardzija signed a five-year deal with the San Francisco Giants on Saturday, according to Alex Pavlovic of CSN Bay Area.
The Giants announced the deal later Saturday, while Jon Heyman of CBS Sports reported Samardzija received a limited no-trade clause. Tim Brown of Yahoo Sports reported the contract is worth $90 million.
Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle provided more financial details:
Samardzija went 11-13 last season with a 4.96 ERA for the Chicago White Sox, who finished in fourth place, 19 games behind the World Series champion Kansas City Royals, in the American League Central. Samardzija had plenty of support from the Chicago offense, as he ranked 36th in the majors with 4.19 runs per start.
San Francisco is Samardzija's fourth team in the past two-plus seasons.
Scott Merkin of MLB.com passed along White Sox pitcher Chris Sale's take on Samardzija:
Whatever team gets him is going to get a steal. Really, he's relatively young, and he's got a strong arm with not a lot of innings on it. And he's a competitor. Say what you want about him, he competes as hard as anybody. That's his mentality, how he's always been. I think the football comes out in him sometimes. You need that. If you don't have that passion, don't play the game, right? At the end of the day at least you know he (cares).
In 2014 with the Chicago Cubs, Samardzija was one of the better pitchers in the National League despite a 2-7 record. He had a 2.83 ERA and was selected to his first All-Star team.
But before the All-Star break that season, Samardzija was dealt to the Oakland Athletics, and in the second half he went 5-6 with a 3.14 ERA—a relatively low mark for an American League pitcher. In December 2014, he was traded to the White Sox.
Samardzija's one-year deal worth $9.8 million expired at the end of the 2015 season.
The Giants are getting a passionate pitcher who rarely backs down from a challenge. And although that sometimes might get him into trouble—he was one of the main culprits in the White Sox-Royals brawl in April—his competitiveness could help spark San Francisco.
Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com.
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