The 2010 San Francisco Giants and their Homegrown Pitching Staff

Every so often, I'll wander toward the Baseball-Reference page for the 2010 San Francisco Giants. It's nice to take it all in. We're world champions, and it's been quite a long wait.

Today, though, I noticed something quite interesting. Specifically, this:

How common is that? To have six pitchers, acquired via the amateur draft, each post 1.5+ rWAR? Five posted 2+ rWAR. And heck, four even posted 3+ rWAR?

As it turns out, it is really unique.

I ran a play index query and found that since 1965, when the first amateur draft was held, only 70 teams have had four or more pitchers post 3+ rWAR in a given season. I then poured through all 70 of those teams...

How many of them had four or more pitchers, acquired via the draft, post 3+ rWAR?

Three. That's it. --

1992 Milwaukee Brewers
2005 Oakland Athletics
2010 San Francisco Giants

Those 1992 Brewers featured Bill Wegman, Jaime Navarro, Cal Eldred, and Chris Bosio, all acquired via the amateur draft. And the 2005 A's, more recently, had Rich Harden, Joe Blanton, Huston Street, and Barry Zito.

Anyway, that group of Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, Jonathan Sanchez, and Brian Wilson -- they did something rare in 2010 (in addition to winning a World Series...).

Just another thing to appreciate about this team.

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