Biggest Spring Standout: San Francisco Giants
Teams are making their final roster preps for the start of the 2023 season, and we'll be taking a look at who made the biggest impact in each team's spring camp.
Very aptly pitching for the San Francisco Giants, the 6'11" giant of a pitcher, Sean Hjelle takes the Spring Standout award for the NL West club.
As a starting pitcher, he'll need some help (in the form of unforeseen circumstances) to crack the Giants' Starting Five this season, but he certainly showed he's worthy of strong consideration for the job.
Farhan Zaidi has been impressed with Sean Hjelle, who has a "really good chance" of making the Opening Day roster pic.twitter.com/53ikeW8RNp
— SF Giants on NBCS (@NBCSGiants) March 24, 2023
GM Farhan Zaidi talked about how impressed he was with Hjelle this spring. "We saw really good velocity from him at the end of last season, and it's really carried over."
In 17 innings pitched in the Cactus League, the power pitching Hjelle allowed just three earned runs for a 1.59 ERA, along with a 1.06 WHIP and 11.6 strikeouts per nine innings.
He was cranking his fastball up to 96 mph, and keeping all three of his pitches around the plate for a 22:3 K/BB ratio.
The Giants' second-round pick in the 2018 Draft showed considerable improvement from his 2022 season at Triple-A, when he posted a 4.92 ERA and just 7.4 K/9. He also had a brief trial in San Francisco last season, struggling to a 5.76 ERA in 25 innings. But even then, he showed his strikeout potential, fanning 10.1 major leaguers per nine.
He'll get a bigger chance now in The Show.
Other spring standouts:
Photo: Matt Kartozian-USA TODAY Sports
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