Moments after the deal was reported, Tim Brown of Yahoo Sports added that the right-handed starting pitcher will make $90 million over his five-year contract.
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The San Francisco Giants didn’t waste any time feeling sorry for themselves after losing out on prized free agent Zack Greinke.
The Giants said the deal is pending a physical.
The Giants tried hard for Greinke, who made his decision on Friday to leave the Dodgers – but for another, surprising NL West entrant in Arizona.
In Samardzija, they’ll have to count on a bounce-back season. Samardzija had an up and down season with the White Sox this year and now will join a rotation that includes Madison Bumgarner and Matt Cain in San Francisco.
Presumably, he will benefit from a return to the National League and a relationship with Giants pitching coach Dave Righetti.
The Cubs kept up a dialogue with Samardzija’s representatives – president of baseball operations Theo Epstein even met with the pitcher at a Southport Corridor bar before Thanksgiving – but saw where the negotiations would be heading and pivoted toward John Lackey. After not being traded at the deadline, he immediately went 1-8 with a 9.24 ERA over his next nine starts.
For his career, Samardzija, knowns as “Shark”, is 47-61 with a 4.09 ERA.
It’s unclear whether or not this takes the Giants out of the running to sign Mike Leake.
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The 30-year-old was below his best in 2015 with a 4.96 ERA while allowing a league-high 228 hits but brings a workhorse ethos after pitching over 200 innings in each of the last three seasons.
