SF Giants hope Kyle Harrison's MLB debut is the dawn of a new era

The SF Giants are calling up Kyle Harrison, the franchise's best pitching prospect in more than a decade. Could this be the start of a new era?

By all accounts, Kyle Harrison is the best pitching prospect in the SF Giants organization. That's according to MLB, Baseball Prospectus, and Baseball America. He’s ranked that highly here, too. And he's finally going to make his big-league debut on Tuesday against the Philadelphia Phillies.

The last time there was this much hype around a Giants’ pitching prospect call up Madison Bumgarner was making his MLB debut in September of 2009 before he was called up for good in June 2010 as the Giants made their first run for a World Series title to kick off the dynasty years.

Harrison’s a fastball, slider, changeup guy. He’s never had a DRA- (a league-adjusted metric where anything below 100 is above-average) above 84 in the minor leagues. He has a capital S stuff kind of arsenal — the kind that gets one invested to see how he does in his first big league start. A lot of people want to see his Major League debut, and for good reason.

It’s been a while since the Giants had more than one homegrown pitcher stick in the rotation. Logan Webb, who was drafted in 2014 and made his MLB debut in 2019, is the most recent one and has become an ace. Harrison has the potential to form a dominant duo with Webb atop the rotation.

The 2012 rotation had four (one in a roundabout kind of way) homegrown players: Bumgarner, Matt Cain, Tim Lincecum, and Ryan Vogelsong. These were teams stacked with draft classes with strong pitching. Somewhere along the way, the number of these guys starting dwindled. There were still strong rotations, but it wasn’t a dynasty-era shockingly-sweep-the-Tigers-in-the-World-Series kind of way.

There are top pitching prospects who have come and gone through the system that maybe, if you remember them, you can use them for an answer on Immaculate Grid. (Kyle Crick! Tyler Beede! Chris Stratton!) There are too many things and no right answers around why pitchers do or don’t stick around. Sometimes there’s stock in TINSTAAPP, sometimes it’s just whatever luck’s in the air that ends up working.

The Giants are in the middle of a playoff hunt. They’re 12 games back of the NL West, but right there for a Wild Card spot. They need a lot of things to click to keep the Wild Card spot, pitching being one of them. Harrison could be that guy to give the rotation that 1-2 homegrown punch the way of the late ‘00s/early ‘10s had.

Maybe Kyle Harrison’s figuring things out still. He’ll make his adjustments, and find his way to stick to the big leagues. Even Madison Bumgarner got a cup of coffee before getting called up for good. But he will make his first MLB impression on Tuesday night against the Phillies.