Giants take a flier on Tyler Mahle

New Year’s Eve is a good time to agree to an eight-figure contract; you already have champagne on hand to celebrate. Congratulations then Tyler Mahle and the San Francisco Giants killing two birds with one stone.

Mahle is one of baseball’s great “I can fix him, guys,” a status reflected in his contract structure: $10 million guaranteed over one year, with an additional $3 million available in performance incentives. In 2020, the right-hander retired 29.9% of the batters he faced during the pandemic-shortened season. The following year he made 33 starts, pitched 180 innings and posted 3.9 WAR.

Based on WAR and strikeout rate, Mahle was one of the 30 best pitchers in baseball that year; Squint your eyes and you see one Aaron Nola- or Jose Berrios-type no. 2 starters. That’s probably what the Twins thought when they signed three players (including Spencer Steer And Christian Encarnacion-Beach) to Cincinnati for the privilege of hiring him. It didn’t go well.

Mahle’s shoulder started barking almost immediately, limiting him to a token involvement in the Twins’ 2022 playoff run. Then his UCL failed in April 2023, ending his Minnesota career after nine starts.

The Rangers, fresh off the 2023 World Series title and dealing with a litany of pitching injuries of their own, entered that winter on a two-year contract, figuring Mahle would help in the final stages of their title defense and return to previous form for 2025.

That didn’t quite work out either. Between Tommy John recovery and yet another shoulder injury, Mahle made just three starts in 2024. (Not that it mattered, as Texas didn’t show its post-championship season.) More shoulder fatigue put a three-month hole in the middle of Mahle’s 2025, but when he was available he tantalized.

In 16 starts, Mahle posted a 2.18 ERA. Only among pitchers who threw at least 80 innings out of the rotation Nathan Eovaldi, Trevor RogersAnd Paul Skenes had a lower ERA. Getting even half of a season like that for ten million dollars (or even thirteen million dollars) would be the deal of a lifetime for Buster Posey and are merry men.

But if you even think about scrutinizing Mahle’s season and looking at the underlying numbers, things get really weird.

Mahle’s repertoire hasn’t changed much since 2021; it has a four-sieve, which owes its effectiveness not so much to its speed as to its excellent movement in two planes. Mahle uses that to set up a mid-80s splitter with a similar arm action but more drop, as well as a mediocre slider/cutter combo that sometimes blends together.

Five years ago, Mahle had average fastball velocity; now that he’s in his 30’s, on his second UCL and has to go on the IL if he even sleeps on his shoulder, funny, he’s lost two miles per hour off his heater, while the league average fastball velo has gone up.

Fastball velo isn’t the whole proverbial ball game, but throwing harder does make a pitcher’s life easier. For example:

Mahle used to get strikeout and whiff rates that were (I’m simplifying here to avoid being bombarded with numbers) around the 80th percentile. In 2025, he had a 23rd percentile K% and a 32nd percentile scent rate. This is, suffice it to say, no longer a big strikeout guy, ERA in the low 2.00s or not. Mahle is not now – and never has been – one George Kirby-level avoider of walks.

And yet his FIP in 2025 was 3.37, which isn’t as good as his ERA (which I think everyone but Mahle’s agent would admit was at least a little fluctuating), but is still pretty good. What is the third ingredient in FIP? That’s right, home runs, of which Mahle allowed just five in 86 2/3 innings.

Mahle arrived in Texas with a career HR/9 rate of 1.39 and a career HR/FB ratio of 14.6%. In 2025, those numbers were 0.52 and 4.9%, respectively — the third lowest and lowest among the 138 starters with 80 or more innings.

Despite throwing a splitter as his no. 1 secondary pitch, Mahle is a flyball pitcher. Not to the extent of, like, Shota Imanaga or Andrew Abbottbut the flyball bias in his game has been quite durable. That’s what happens when you throw a fastball that misses the barrels up instead of down.

I think it’s reasonable to expect Mahle’s home run numbers to drop in San Francisco based on the park factor alone; the Rangers’ home field is fairly neutral for home runs, while the Reds’ is the closest to Coors Field east of the Mississippi. And speaking of generalities here, Mahle did a better job of burying his splitter and cutter on the glove side of the strike zone in 2025.

It would be quite easy to look at Mahle holistically and now paint him as a hard-contact oppressor. He’s always been a fast-ball-move-over-velo guy, and now that he’s an old, grizzled vet, he’s gotten better at the nuances of pitching, avoiding tons of them rather than missing them altogether.

However, the figures do not support that story. His xwOBACON in 2025 was .360 and his HardHit% was 37.1, both within a tenth of a percent of his career average. Mahle’s xERA, 4.27, was almost a run higher than his FIP and more than two runs higher than his actual ERA. So yes, anyone expecting these numbers for 2025 will be disappointed in the future.

Nevertheless, I really like this signing for the Giants for four reasons.

First: The Giants, who just signed Adriaan Huiser I’ve been making a run for the past month on starting pitchers I like, despite a lack of empirical support. You’d think that would give me more confidence, but I’m always a little nervous when a front office’s taste in players is too closely aligned with mine because they’re supposed to be smarter than me. I remember the Tigers spending a bunch of draft picks on college players in 2014 that really got me high: Joey Pankake, Adam Ravenelle, Artie Lewickiand about five others. Detroit then missed the playoffs 10 years in a row. In short, if San Francisco signs German Marquezit will scare me a bit.

Back in the realm of the rational, $10 million for a starting pitcher with a recent history of decent performance is a perfectly acceptable expense. Given the choice between spending $10 million on Mahle or $12.5 million Dustin Maywhat the Cardinals did, I would pick Mahle every time.

Reason No. 3: Let’s assume that Mahle’s career-best home run avoidance numbers were the result of the move from Cincinnati to Arlington. (His stop in Minnesota was too short to count.) Wouldn’t it seem like a good idea to tie him to a home ballpark with a huge outfield and a constant headwind?

And finally, Mahle has undergone major physiological changes over the past five years due to aging and injuries, but he’s pitching largely the same things he has since his breakout season in 2020. Now he’s heading to a coaching staff that has big opinions on pitching pedagogy.

In my write-up of Tony Vitello’s hiring by the Giants, I elaborated on two assistants he leaned on during his time at Tennessee: strength coach Quentin Eberhart and pitching coach Frank Anderson. Those guys turned Tennessee into a pitching factory and both followed Vitello to San Francisco. I’d be surprised if, come Memorial Day, Mahle still throws the same four pitches the same way. If the Giants’ new starter is open to suggestions to change his game, you could say he’s Mahle-savvy. (Thank you, thank you.)

That said, the Giants still have plenty of work to do this offseason, because if the goal is to scare the Dodgers, then this rotation won’t be enough. This is when Mahle and Houser find out Logan Webb And Robbie Raywhich gives San Francisco, I don’t know, 1 1/3 starting pitchers, who should scare the Dodgers? Like a no. 5 starter with upside for more, I really like Mahle with this deal. If he is the Giants’ plan A to be their No. 1. 3 starter, they’re going to need a lot of things to go right if they want to compete.