Samardzija is pronounced suh-MARR-juh.

His surname is Serbian. Jeff Samardzija is very proud of his Serbian heritage even though his grandparents emigrated from Europe in the 1940s.

Jeff played a lot of sports while growing up. "I wrestled, played soccer and basketball, and ran track," Samardzjia said. "My dad tired to get me to play hockey (he had gotten to semi-pro, but the pay was so low, he had to get a "real" job). But I wasn't much of a skater."

PLAYED FOOTBALL AT NOTRE DAME

At Notre Dame, Samardzija was a reserve for his first two seasons, catching a total of 24 passes, and not starting until the Insight Bowl at the end of his sophomore season. In 2005, Samardzija emerged as a star, ending the regular season with 77 catches, 15 of them for touchdowns, for 1,215 yards.

Jeff set single-season school records in both receiving yardage and touchdown receptions. Jeff also caught a TD pass in each of Notre Dame's first eight games in 2005, giving him the school record for consecutive games with a TD reception.

Jeff was the son of Sam Sr. and the late Debora Samardzija. Jeff was selected as one of the three finalists for the Fred Biletnikoff Award, given annually to the nation's top wide receiver.

Jeff's mother, Debora, died of a respiratory illness when he was a teenager. Surviving the loss of his mother, Samardzija says, gave him resilience—and the knowledge that he can get through any difficult situation.

"Adversity is not permanent," he says. "There's nothing that says it has to continue. When you're a young man like I was and go through a loss like that, it just makes you realize that it's not the end of the world, and you start to appreciate the good things that you have."

Debora grew up an "all-American daughter of a dairy farming family" in a small town outside Valparaiso, Indiana, where she later lived with her husband and two sons., Jeff and Sam.

"It was as Middle America as it could possibly get," Samardzija says. Describing Debora, he says, "She was an elementary school secretary. She was very selfless and put the people around her first every day, probably to a fault.

Jeff was 16 years old when his mom died. A parent himself now, he and wife, Andrea, have Luca, age 3 and Leonard James, 6 months—in July, 2019.

Samardzija played many sports—baseball, football, basketball, track and wrestling—at Valparaiso High School and his brother Sam, four years older, was a scholarship baseball player at Indiana Univ. Their father, also Sam, had been a minor league hockey player. But Debora, not so much.

"She was not an athlete. You can underline 'not'," he says. "Ir was all crocheting and arts and crafts. She spent a lot of time in the kitchen, cooking and baking. To this day, I still make the same recipes that she made. It's a nice way to remember her."

When Debora became ill, Sam Jr. stopped playing college baseball. When she died during Jeff's senior year, his brother came home every weekend, cheering him on at football games and helping with the recruiting process. (Dan Fost - Giants Magazine - July, 2019)

As a junior wide receiver, Jeff entered Irish lore for first-year coach Charlie Weis. In his first-team all-America season, he set Notre Dame’s single-season records for yards receiving (1,249) and touchdown catches (15).

During the 2006 football season, Jeff caught 70 passes for 958 yards, and 11 touchdowns for the Fighting Irish.

Samardzija was at one time thought of as a football player first—known as the Shark in South Bend—in the public sporting consciousness. That has changed.

"It was kind of a joke in college," Jeff said. "A couple dudes said I looked like the shark from Shark Tale. Then the coach got hold of it, and the media got hold of it, and somehow it took off."

And Jeff said his friends don't ever actually call him "shark." "Not unless they're trying to piss me off."

While some were calling him a modern-day Bo Jackson, Jeff thought differently. "I just want to be a modern day Jeff Samardzija," Samardzija said. "I want to just go out and do what I can do. I don't know where that road leads. There is a lot of talk about it because he did it so successfully. I haven't done anything. I've just played baseball and football in college. It's nothing compared to what Bo Jackson did.

"All I'm asking is to pursue both sports for as long as I can. Hopefully I'll make the right decision along the way." Can he play both sports professionally?

"I would say it's doubtful," Notre Dame football coach Charlie Weis said. "I mean how many Bo Jacksons are out there? I think that he'll let it play out. But you want to know something? We could care less which sport it ends up being. I could care less if it ends up being baseball. Whatever ends up being the best for him."

Irish baseball coach Paul Mainieri believes it's possible.

"Nothing this kid would do would surprise me," Mainieri said. "He defied the odds already for what he's done at Notre Dame. Especially when you add in his academics. He's going to graduate in three and a half years.

"I've had a half dozen scouting directors tell me that if football was not in the equation, he would have been without a doubt one of the top 15 picks in the draft. It's a risk, but it's a pretty good gamble for the Cubs. They are getting a top-half of the first round talent."  (Jeff Vorva-Baseball America-6/30/2006)

In the 2006 college football season, Notre Dame quarterback Brady Quinn noted, "The cool thing about Jeff is that he's intense, but his attitude helps keep things loose. In the huddle, when things are getting tight, he'll be cracking jokes with people. If there's ever a person who could handle the pressure of playing two sports, it's Samardzija."

Asked how it felt not to be playing for Notre Dame in the fall of 2007, Jeff said: "It wasn't that weird. You get into that schedule, but it really wasn't weird. I watched some [football] games and hung out with a couple buddies, but I thought about the baseball season more."

Jeff had a taste of pro baseball, signing with the Cubs—60 miles from home in the other direction—and playing in Boise, Idaho, the summer before his senior year at Notre Dame.

"I got to taste first-hand what pro baseball is all about," Samardzija said. "I was hooked. We had tons of fun. I'm a guys guy, so I don't mind riding six hours on the bus, playing some cards. That's what it's all about. Whatever success I've had is strictly because of that love."

Not only did Jeff have a new career blooming, but his brother, Sam, Jr. did too. He became Samardzija's agent. He still holds that job today, as VP for baseball with Wasserman, the same agency that represents fello big leaguers like Brandon Crawford and Nolan Arenado, among others.

The tough part for Samardzija—other than watching the Irish go 3-9—was not being able to play with his Notre Dame teammates. The Irish could've used Samardzija, who holds the school record for receptions, receiving yards, and receiving touchdowns. So, no regrets about giving up football? "No—not even close," Samardzija said laughing.

A marketing major at Notre Dame, his grade point average in the fall of 2005 was 3.05, and in the spring of 2006 was 3.03.

Brady Quinn, Samardzija’s quarterback at Notre Dame, who is now with the Cleveland Browns, agreed with Cubs officials and players who believe the Notre Dame experience prepared Samardzija to handle a pennant race, in a town where “It’s Gonna Happen” signs again dominate the North Side. “In a pressure situation, a pressure down, he was someone I always trusted, because he was always able to make a play,” Quinn said. “I think he’s going to be able to handle whatever the Major Leagues throw at him. He’s just that kind of guy.”

"You remember how you had it when you were there," Samardzija said. "The students were excited about it."

During the winter before 2008 spring training, Baseball America rated Samardzija as the 8th-best prospect in the Cubs organization. In the offseason before 2009 Spring training, they had Jeff moved up to #2 in the Cubs' farm system, behind only third baseman Josh Vitters.

Jeff is a team player. He is also humble and respectful of others. He is very comfortable and knows he belongs in the big leagues. He is a joy to be around and makes those around him better.

In May 2008, Samardzija bought a condo 10 blocks from Wrigley Field and just 59 miles from his boyhood home of Valparaiso, Indiana.

Jeff is a big fan of classic rock—Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, the Doobie Brothers, etc. Also, he likes Modest Mouse, The Flaming Lips, and Secret Machines.

FOOTBALL OR BASEBALL?

Samardzija did consider playing both sports. "I wanted to leave all my options open," he said. "Being a young kid, you don't know what you want all the time."

So, why baseball?

"I loved both," he said, "and I knew it would be a tough decision. After playing a summer with the Cubs [in 2006], and before I went back for my senior year of football, it really opened up my eyes as to what the sport was all about. I was intrigued at the amount of time I had put in football that I hadn't put in baseball. I was intrigued by what the ceiling was, and where we could get to. I had fun playing baseball and that was the most important thing."

At Notre Dame, student athletes were allotted 20 hours each week for sports. Samardzija spent 16 hours on football and four on baseball. He does watch NFL games and sometimes wonders "what if," but he's happy with his choice.

"You can't have your ice cream and eat it, too, all the time," he said.

That football mentality has both helped and hurt him. Sveum called it a "gorilla" approach to pitching. That may be the biggest change in Samardzija last year as he learned how to pitch rather than just trying to blow fastballs by hitters.

"Early in my career, I had to battle too many emotions and having that [football] mentality," he said. "To kind of suppress that for a while and learn how to pitch as a pitcher helped a lot. There are certain times when you need that—you need that little extra energy, extra fire to get through tough situations. But everything has to be in check and under control."

Samardzija's brother, Sammy, a former all-state high school baseball and football player who now runs Jeff's website (jeff-samardzija.com), visited Jeff in South Bend in December 2006, toting a white-board on which he drew a line down the middle, with FOOTBALL on one side and BASEBALL on the other. Carrying the day for the diamond were the "pros" Jeff listed under baseball, which included the longevity factor, the lifestyle of playing every day rather than enduring daily meetings and practices, and, at the end, location, location, location. "If you're a kid who played ball in Northwest Indiana," says Sam, "Wrigley Field is like Mecca."

Jeff likes to go fishing and spend time outdoors during his spare time. He is an Oakland Raiders fan and loves playing fantasy football.

A few days later, Samardzija clarified the timing. He did meet with Sveum at Wrigley Field on the day he was hired in November 2011, and yes, he did dump his girlfriend.

"In previous years, I didn't feel like I had done everything I could," Samardzija said about baseball. "I thought I worked hard in the offseason and did a lot of things, but especially in midseason I didn't feel I was putting myself where I needed to be to be the best I could be.

"I worked hard that offseason and when we met, I told Sveum I had no distractions in my life, and this game can be a lot about just minimizing distractions from the outside," he said. "The older you get, the most you realize that.

"I wanted to level with him that I didn't have any distractions and the only thing on my mind was making the rotation and pitching 30, 32 starts. The best way I could describe it was by saying I didn't have a girlfriend."  (3/22/2013-Carrie Muskat-mlb.com)

Jeff was nicknamed "the shark" by teammates because they said he looked like the shark in the movie "Finding Nemo." But he was first nicknamed "Shark" when he was at Notre Dame.

July 5, 2014: Samardzija received a text from Cubs president of baseball operations Theo Epstein. Soon enough, he was on the phone with his new boss, and A's general manager Billy Beane was asking if he would be able to start in Oakland that upcoming Sunday.

"Billy asked me how I felt," said Samardzija, moments after arriving at the Coliseum just past first pitch on Saturday. "I was supposed to pitch today, so I'm a day past my due date to pitch. I'm chomping at the bit. I don't think there's any better way to get acclimated than to do it on the mound. It was a no-brainer for me, and I look forward to it."

Samardzija will be facing the Blue Jays for the first time in his career for his first start in green and gold, less than 48 hours after learning he and teammate Jason Hammel had been packaged in a monster deal to the A's, who rewarded the rebuilding Cubs with four young players in return, including top prospect Addison Russell.

Following months of trade rumors, the highly prized Samardzija wasn't so much shocked when told to pack his bags. He just didn't expect to be handed a one-way ticket to the Bay Area, where he frequented in college as an All-American wide receiver for Notre Dame.

"Oakland was a pleasant surprise," he said. "There had been so much talk about Toronto and a handful of other teams. Oakland kept it pretty close to the chest and then all of a sudden they strike. I got word, and I was ecstatic.

"I'm a big fan of the Bay Area here. I played at Stanford a handful of times, and obviously coming in, this is a team that's done plenty fine without me, and I'm looking to do my part and hopefully add to the depth of the pitching staff. There's still a lot of season left to be played, so a lot of work left to be done."

Samardzija was 2-7 with a 2.83 ERA in 17 starts for the Cubs, who gave him an average of just 3.08 runs of support, the fourth lowest mark in the National League. The first-place A's, in contrast, lead the Majors in runs scored by a wide margin.

"I'm right where I need to be, man. I'm excited," he said. "I've been begging for this for a while, situation-wise, of coming in every day to win games as opposed to worrying which guys are going to be here or not be here."

"My skills at meeting new people are pretty up there," Samardzija said, smiling. "I hope I can bring a sense of excitement to the team. You don't want to be a distraction. You want to be an addition. My goal is to come in and make a seamless transition in being a part of this team." (Jane Lee MLB.com, 7/5/2014)

As an Oakland A's hurler, Samardzija temporarily swapped allegiances during the 2014 All-Star Game introductions, electing to stand by his former National League peers who got him there in the first place.

Samardzija, traded by the Cubs to Oakland just two days before his NL All-Star selection was announced, donned a generic NL jersey for the ceremony, while six of his new A's teammates looked on from the other side. 

Soon enough, though, he joined his fellow A's in the American League dugout following a wardrobe change, turning in his NL attire for good in exchange for an A's cap and pullover. He wasn't allowed to participate in the game for either side because of his unique status.

"I just felt like the best thing to do was show my respects to the National League team by doing the workouts with them," he said. "I also think it's important I get announced as a National League All-Star, just because that's who I pitched for when I got voted in."

At the very least, he added, "I don't have to pitch, so my anxiety level is at an all-time low.'' (Lee - mlb.com - 7/15/2014)

A relatively short time ago, Samardzija was viewed as a solid-if-unspectacular piece of the Cubs' rotation. Samardzija had become a workhorse, amassing 213 innings in 2013. He had a penchant for punchouts, striking out more than nine batters per nine innings from 2011-13. And of course, Samardzija had those awesome flowing locks that not only fit well with his love of '70s rock but also gave him an ace-type allure.

A true ace, however, he was not. Samardzija had an ERA over 5.00 in each of the final three months of the 2013 season. If you talked to Cubs people last winter, they were hesitant to trade him, because his value was not yet at its height, and equally hesitant to extend him, because he had not yet proven himself to be deserving of the upper-market money he sought.

On every front, Samardzija's value rose in a big way as the first half of the 2014 season evolved, and it rose because of adjustments he consciously made—adjustments that really got lost in the shuffle of all the trade discussion.

"[When you're on the block], every time you pitch well, all that gets talked about is how it impacts your trade value," Samardzija said. "Not much is talked about your growth and where you came from or just what happened that individual day. It's a little bit of a distraction. But I just did the best I could to increase my value, because I knew it would not only help me, but help the Cubs also, and I do have love for that organization and wanted them to get a good deal out of it, too."

Executives around the game think the Cubs got a great deal—Dan Straily, prospects Addison Russell and Billy McKinney, and a player to be named for Samardzija and Jason Hammel. A nice haul for an organization stockpiling highly touted position players.

And in Samardzija, the Athletics got a guy who has subtly reinvented himself on the mound this season to become one of baseball's elite arms. That his competitive fire and eccentric style happen to fit in perfectly with the A's "come as you are" clubhouse is an added bonus.

"The great thing about baseball," Samardzija said, "is it's everyone's own personal career, so you have the responsibility and the duty to control what you can control. And I think Oakland epitomizes that by throwing these guys in the dugout, not surrounding them with too many rules, and then letting them come together to win games. When your premise is just winning ballgames, I think everything else just kind of falls into place."  (Castrovince - mlb.com - 7/23/2014)

April 23, 2015: White Sox starting pitchers Chris Sale and Jeff Samardzija each received five-game suspensions for their role in the on-field fracas taking place during the bottom of the seventh inning against the Royals' at U.S. Cellular Field. (S Merkin - MLB.com - April 25, 2015)

Samardzija is what baseball people would call a young 31, in 2016. He already had slightly more than six years in the big leagues, but he’s only been a starting pitcher since 2012, and his amateur days on the mound were limited because of his commitment to football.

“It is not like he is some guy who has been banging it out since Little League,” Giants pitching coach Dave Righetti said. “He has a fresh arm and a great attitude. He has an open-book personality.”

June 11, 2016; Here's another reason baseball remains our national pastime: Jeff Samardzija operates more often than not as a productive member of the Giants. That's the San Francisco ones. The New York Giants play in the NFL, where they and their brethren had a chance, nearly a decade ago, of watching this gifted athlete of 6-foot-5 and 225 pounds prosper in their league.

"For me, I just felt like, regarding my ceiling in baseball, there was just more there," said Samardzija. The 31-year old ranks among the leaders of Major League pitchers in games started. "I'd given a lot of my time in early childhood to football with camps and trying to get recruited and seeking a scholarship," Samardzija said. "Baseball took the back burner for a lot of years, but I always knew I had a good arm, and it always intrigued me to see what I'd do if I gave it a fair chance."

Now we know. Hitters really know. Let's start with Samardzija and that football thing. Since I was born and raised in South Bend, Indiana, home of the University of Notre Dame, I devour every millisecond of Fighting Irish football, which means I'm also a Notre Dame historian. So I'm still pleasantly stunned that Samardzija pursued his passion of flinging baseballs with his right hand instead of his hobby of catching footballs. Samardzija would have flourished in the NFL, too. Trust me. He was an extraordinary wide receiver. Actually, he was better than that.

Now consider this: Since the 1960s, I've seen a slew of highly celebrated pass catchers at Notre Dame, starting with Jack Snow, Jim Seymour and Tom Gatewood. They were followed by Heisman Trophy winner Tim Brown and the magical hands of Raghib "Rocket" Ismail. In recent times, Michael Floyd was as efficient as they come, and so was Golden Tate. Even these days, the Irish have standout Torii Hunter Jr., whose father, Torii Sr., was a perennial baseball All-Star, mostly with the Twins.

None of those mentioned holds the Notre Dame record for most receiving yards and touchdown receptions in a season, or for most consecutive games (eight) catching a touchdown pass, or for most receiving yards during a career, or for most improbable catches in the clutch. Samardzija still chose baseball over football.

That said, for the longest time, he contemplated pulling a Bo Jackson and a Deion Sanders by doing both."Yeah. When I was 20, your ideas are a little expanded with a little less restraint, so my original plan was to play football mostly full-time, and hopefully, the Cubs or whoever ended up drafting me -- and it ended up being the Cubs— would allow me to show up once the season was over," said Samardzija, who grew up in the northwestern Indiana city of Merrillville as a Chicago sports fan. "I really didn't have much of a plan about what I wanted to do, because playing two sports at the same time hadn't been done that much before." When it was done, it wasn't done for long. 

You know the rest. In January 2007, fresh from a career filled with all-everything football honors at Notre Dame, Samardzija signed a five-year deal with the Cubs with options. He later pitched for the A's and his beloved White Sox before he signed with the Giants this past offseason. Prior to arriving in San Francisco, he had a mostly steady career until he spent his first and only season with the White Sox in 2015, when he allowed more hits and earned runs than any pitcher in baseball. He also gave up an AL-high 29 home runs.

Then, after Samardzija joined the Giants, he received tutelage from manager Bruce Bochy and pitching coach Dave Righetti. Specifically, they cured his habit from last season of tipping his pitches. Now, all is well for Samardzija, who also stopped doing something else years ago—wondering "what if" regarding football.

"Actually, I quit thinking about football when I flipped a coin," said Samardzija, chuckling, referring to a moment in his apartment near campus at the end of his Notre Dame career. "After I flipped it, it came up football, and my immediate gut reaction was ticked off. So, I said, 'Well, I must want to play baseball." No kidding. (T Moore - MLB.com - June 11, 2016)

March 2017: Samardzija was listed among six pitchers on the Team USA designated pitcher pool, meaning that he  was eligible to play in the second round of the World Baseball Classic.

Jeff is very close to his family. At one point, his brother also served as his agent.

Oct 25, 2019: One of the more underrated storylines of the Giants’ 2019 season was the resurgence of Jeff Samardzija. Limited to only 10 starts during an injury-marred 2018 campaign, Samardzija emerged as arguably the Giants’ most consistent starter, logging a 3.52 ERA and 1.11 WHIP over 181 innings. It marked his lowest ERA and WHIP since his All-Star season in 2014 and a massive improvement from the 6.25 ERA he posted in '18, when he struggled to pitch through a compromised right shoulder.

"All things said, after where we were last year, absolutely, I'm pretty proud of it," Samardzija said. "We'll repeat that offseason and stay strong and look forward to next year."

What went right?

Samardzija never cleaned out his locker at Oracle Park after the 2018 season, opting to stay in the Bay Area during the offseason to rehab his shoulder. He reported to Spring Training healthy, and while the Giants were cautious with his workload at the beginning of the regular season, he soon proved capable of taking on more.

Samardzija recorded a 4.52 ERA through his first 16 starts of the year, but he emerged as one of the best starters in the NL in the second half of his season with a 2.67 ERA over his final 16 outings. After increasing the usage of his four-seam fastball and his cutter, Samardzija held opposing hitters to a .225 batting average for the season, the lowest mark of his career as a starting pitcher.

While the Giants didn’t expect Samardzija to be the 200-inning workhorse he had been earlier in his career, he came close to reaching that number and helped anchor San Francisco’s rotation alongside fellow veteran Madison Bumgarner.

“It took a lot of hard work,” former manager Bruce Bochy said. “Hard work by him and the training staff. We treated him with kid gloves there at the beginning. I was a little concerned, and probably overly concerned. I just wanted him for the whole year, and it just kept getting better and better. His strength and stamina got better. Next thing you know, here he was throwing 100 pitches, maintaining the same stuff. I’m really proud of him.”

What went wrong?

Like many of the Giants’ starters, Samardzija proved most vulnerable in the first inning, posting a 5.06 ERA and surrendering 10 home runs over 32 opening frames.

Best moment:

Samardzija delivered his finest start of the season against the Phillies on Aug. 10, allowing only two hits over eight innings of one-run ball. The 34-year-old right-hander yielded a two-out solo home run to Corey Dickerson in the first inning, but he retired 20 consecutive batters after that in a 3-1 victory for the Giants.

2020 outlook:

Samardzija is due to earn $19.8 million in the final season of the five-year, $90 million contract that he signed with the Giants in 2015. He plans to repeat his throwing program from last offseason and remain in the Bay Area to maintain the strength in his shoulder. The Giants will have question marks in their rotation heading into next year.  But Samardzija’s revival, coupled with Johnny Cueto’s return from Tommy John surgery, should give them a pair of veteran arms to lean on in 2020, even if they lose Bumgarner to free agency. (M Guardado - MLB.com - October 25, 2019)

April 29, 2020: A former wide receiver at Notre Dame, Samardzija can credit his background in football for more than just his athleticism and competitiveness. His days on the gridiron also helped him develop his chirping abilities, which were on full display during the Giants’ fantasy football draft last year.

“He’s got the football mentality,” former Giants teammate Stephen Vogt said. “He likes to trash talk everybody. He’s always in a good mood, he’s always happy. He can take it, too, so that’s the best. A lot of times you get guys that are trash talkers that can’t take it, but Shark can definitely take it with the best of them.”

Jeff may have the most unique meet-cute in the Majors.  Sure, he met his now-wife, Andrea, backstage at a Pink Floyd concert when she was working for the band, but that wasn't where it ended. Oh no.

The pitcher then tasked his brother, Sam, to find out her name and mailing address. After sending her a letter -- what is this, the 19th century? -- that included his phone number, the two started talking before having their first official date a few weeks later in Chicago.  (Clair - mlb.com - 5/17/2020)

 TRANSACTIONS

June 18, 2006: After the Cubs drafted him in the 5th round, out of Notre Dame, Jeff signed a whopping deal with the Cubs, via scout Stan Zielinski. The pact was for five years and worth up to $7.25 million, according to what a source close to Samardzija told ESPN's Joe Schad. The deal allowed Samardzija to play football for the Fighting Irish in 2006, and was backloaded. So Samardzija would have to continue to play baseball in order to approach the maximum value of the contract.

Then, on January 19, 2007, Samardzija signed a redone contract to give up football and concentrate only on baseball. It was a five-year, $10 million pact. The deal includes a $2.5 million signing bonus and the Cubs hold options for a sixth and seventh season in 2012 and 2013. If the options are exercised, the deal would be worth $16.5 million over seven years.

February 8, 2014: The Cubs and Samardzija agreed on a one-year deal worth $5,345,000, avoiding salary arbitration. He had asked for $6.2 million and had been offered $2,765,000 by the Cubs.

July 4, 2014: The Cubs traded Samardzija and Jason Hammel to the Athletics; acquiring P Dan Straily and SS Addison Russell, plus OF Billy McKinney and player to be named.

December 9, 2014: The White Sox sent infielder Marcus Semien, RHP Chris Bassitt, C Josh Phegley, and 1B Rangel Ravelo to the A's; acquiring Samardzija.

January 16, 2015: Jeff and the White Sox avoided salary arbitration, agreeing on a one-year deal for $9.8 million.

Samardzjia has an excellent 91-95 mph, two-seam SINKER with good sink. His 93-97 mph 4-seam FASTBALL has  armside run, a swing-and-miss 85-88 mph SPLITTER that can be devastating, a loopy 87-90 mph SLIDER, a 91-95 mph CUTTER, and an 85-89 mph SPLITTER as his changeup. (Spring, 2018)

His fastball is rare in that he combines high velocity with sink. And his splitter is his #1 weapon. Jeff combines size, athleticism, makeup, and that nasty heat that makes him a valuable asset in the rotation.

2016 Season Pitch Usage: 4-seam Fastball: 22.6% of the time; Sinker 26.3%; Slider 15.6%; Change 2%; Curve 7.6% of the time; Cutter 18.4% of the time; and Split 7.5% of the time.

2017 Season Pitch Usage: 4-seam Fastball: 19.6% of the time; Sinker 28.4%; Change less than 1%; Slider 18.1%; Curve 14.4% of the time; Cutter 9% of the time; and Split 10.4% of the time.

2018 Season Pitch Usage: 4-seam Fastball: 12.7% of the time; Sinker 41.5%; Change less than 1%; Slider 19.3%; Curve 11.1%; Cutter 8.9%; and Split 6.1% of the time. Average velocity: 4-seam 93.3 mph, Sinker 93.2, Change 83.3, Slider 87.4, Curve 77.5, Cutter 91.2, and Split 83.5 mph.

2019 Season Pitch Usage: 4-seam Fastball: 26.5% of the time; Sinker 19.8%; Change less than 1%; Slider 20.3%; Curve 2.5%; Cutter 22.6%; and Split 8.31% of the time. Average velocity: 4-seam 91.9 mph, Sinker 92.4, Change 81.9, Slider 85.4, Curve 76.7, Cutter 89.3, and Split 82.6 mph.

2020 Season Pitch Usage: 4-seam Fastball: 18.1% of the time; Sinker 18.5%; Change 14.1%; Slider 25.8%; Cutter 17.5%; and Split 6% of the time. Average velocity: 4-seam 90.5 mph, Sinker 91.3, Change 82.9, Slider 84.5, Cutter 87.7, and Split 82 mph.

Jeff comes at hitters from three-quarters delivery, his 6-foot-5 height giving him power sink on his heater. He has long arms and an easy arm motion.

While his mechanics are free and easy, he lacked deception—until 2016. Slowing down his delivery has enabled him to pitch more under control, but it cost him deception.

So, Jeff now does a little "Johnny Cueto/Luis Tiant" turn, showing the hitter his number, then hiding the ball until the last instant. It's a beautiful thing, especially because his fastball and slider are coming out of the same arm slot. (May, 2016)

2012: Jeff is able to step it up and kick it into another gear when he is in a tough situation. He is very competitive.

His composure is impressive. Crowds and pressure just don't seem to faze him, whether it is a hostile crowd in Miwaukee or a packed house at Wrigley Field.

But, Samardzija did need to clean up his body language. You never want to see him change his aggressiveness. But he will realize at some point that the calmer the demeanor, the more in control you and your team can feel and appear. He is coachable and makes adjustments quickly. 

April 7, 2013: Jeff became the first Cubs pitcher to strike out as many as 13 batters in fewer than six innings.

And he continues to work on strengthening his core and his lower body, with Cubs pitching coach Chris Bosio overseeing the work.

"We worked very hard (in 2012) on balance, making sure that the body was the generator of the power—not putting a lot of stress on the arm. "And he understands the concept," Bosio said during 2013 spring training.

In the pen, Samardzija was out of place. He didn’t have control of his upper-90s fastball; his split-finger outpitch wasn’t one he could throw for strikes, either. He was miserable. “I was unhappy with being a reliever,” Samardzija said. “If you have good stuff as a reliever, your growth can get stunted by living off your stuff. If you always throw 95, 96, 97, you don’t need to learn other pitches.” 

2013: Important to his success has been harnessing his secondary stuff. “I think throwing my offspeed pitches for strikes has really helped me out a lot,” Jeff said.

Take his slider. Pitch-type values have this pitch as his best, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t changed some. While, to some extent, Samardzija wants batters to put the pitch in play, it’s become an out pitch for him. Part of that process was trying to figure out how to use the pitch against lefties. “For so long, it had been a strike pitch for me that I never used it as an out pitch,” Samardzija said. But learning to put it down off the plate against lefties helped him realize  he could use the pitch to finish at bats. He now uses it more than 10% of the time with two strikes; the pitch has his second-highest whiff rate, and it still boasts the best ball rate of his mix.

But it’s the splitter that’s Samardzija’s bread-and-butter pitch. 

“It’s pretty hard … if you’re throwing that splitter for a strike, it’s probably going to be pretty flat and more like a straight changeup type pitch.” More often, The Shark is hunting. If the batter is swinging, he’ll go for the diving, falling, splitfinger and the whiff.

Yes, if you read between the lines, you’ll see it: Jeff Samardzija has two splitfingers. Or more.

Normally it has some arm-side fade. But it cuts, too, like a slider. “You’re not sure where it’s going to end up, and if you’re not sure where it’s going to go, then the hitter is guessing, too,” Samardzija said about the splitter’s beauty. Depending on the day, though, there are things he can do to alter the movement. He doesn’t really change his grip, but he does change how he throws the pitch.

“It’s just pressure on your fingers and thumb location,” he said. “If you’re heavy on your index finger, it’s going to go one way; if you’re heavy on your middle finger, it’s going to go the other way. Put it deeper in your hands to make it go slower, with more of a deep bite. Don’t have much control over those. Those are the ones you start down the middle and let it do its thing.”

So this pitch, depending on how exactly he throws it, sometimes fades, sometimes cuts, sometimes dives, and is sometimes flat? That makes classifying it difficult.  (Eno Sarris - July 10, 2013)

2014: When Jeff analyzed his own career during the offseason, he knew he had to make changes if he was going to become a more reliable top-of-the-rotation-type piece.

"After last year, I was tired," he said. "Toward the end of the year, I fluttered, and I thought it was because I threw a lot of pitches. If you look at it, only [Adam] Wainwright threw more pitches than I did [among National League pitchers]. And that wasn't a stat I was proud of."

"There was a discrepancy there that I needed to change," Samardzija said. "I just felt like, at times, I wore myself out throwing a lot of pitches early in the game and going for that punchout. I wanted to take it easy on myself and mentally not set such high demands of striking guys out, because you can find yourself in a hole."

Today's game is geared toward the strikeout like never before, but it is also heavily weighted in defensive efficiency. Lowering the pitch count became very important. Every extra bit of efficiency counts when you're trying to extend your starts and preserve the bullpen.

"Sometimes you go for that strikeout," he said, "but the majority of the time you just throw the ball in the zone and let your defense catch it behind you."

August 2014: Oakland's polished glovework fits Jeff's formula well. To say Samardzija is excited about the possibilities is an understatement.

"You don't want to mess it up," he said. "I remember thinking about that on my way [to Oakland]. I just kind of wanted to make it as seamless as possible. I couldn't think of a better way than to just go and pitch my first day there. That was a great way to get to know your teammates, share a game with them there. They get to see how you play and how much it means to you to play this game. That puts us on common ground, because they're just a bunch of gamers and dirtballs who love to play." (Castrovince - mlb.com - 7/23/2014)

The easy thing to look at if you want to pick Samardzija for a 2016 breakthrough is his 3.69 FIP over the four seasons: 2012 to 2015, which owes plenty to a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 3.36. His numbers were even stronger in the NL, and he’s going back to the NL. Simple enough—those are strong indicators. But just as important, Samardzija is leaving behind all sorts of things at U.S. Cellular Field that shouldn’t be a problem for him pitching for the Giants.

What are those? First, he’s going from pitching in front of one of baseball’s worst defenses to one of baseball’s best; the Giants’ .706 Defensive Efficiency ranked second in baseball, where the Sox’s ranked 28th at .673. Second, he got poor support from a bad White Sox bullpen; half of the runners he left on base scored after he came out of the game (9 of 18), when the MLB average was 30 percent. The Giants owned baseball’s best mark (21 percent), which you can lay at the doorstep of Bruce Bochy’s savvy and the skills of Santiago Casilla, Sergio Romo, and friends, because the Giants have been tops on that score in three of the past five years. And finally, Samardzija is going from the Cell, one of the easiest places to allow home runs, to AT&T Park, the hardest in the past three years.

Simply put, he’s the right guy in the right place at the right time to bounce back and bust out.

2018 Spring Training: Samardzija worked on refining his  curve and changeup deliveries. 

In 2019, instead of starting hitters off with his fastball, he's mixing up his pitches, including throwing more curveballs. According to Brooks Baseball, Samardzija did not throw any curves from 2012 to 2016. Now the curve is part of a more advanced arsenal.

"He's definitely developed some touch with all his pitches—a slider and a cutter and a splitter," says Curt Young, the Giants' pitching coach. "You mix that in with the way he knows how to command his fastball, which is becoming his strength."

Young calls it "pitching backwards," or throwing secondary pitches first, while hitters expect fastballs.

BOUNCE BACK SEASON IN 2019

In 2019, Samardzija emerged as the Giants’ most consistent starter, logging a 3.52 ERA and 1.11 WHIP over 181 innings.

September 26, 2019: Bruce Bochy admits that he didn’t expect this type of season from Samardzija.

“I’ll be honest,” Bochy said. “It’s a little bit of a surprise.”

Samardzija entered the season as one of the Giants’ biggest unknowns after missing a significant chunk of last season 2018, with a right shoulder injury. He arrived at Spring Training healthy after a winter of rehab, but questions remained about his durability and his ability to provide consistent production out of the rotation. Remarkably, Samardzija managed to deliver on both fronts in 2019. The 34-year-old veteran put the finishing touches on an impressive comeback season by firing six shutout innings in a 2-1 win over the Rockies.

One year after posting a 6.25 ERA over 10 starts, Samardzija emerged as arguably the Giants’ most consistent starter, providing crucial stability at the top of San Francisco’s rotation alongside left-hander Madison Bumgarner. After holding the Rockies to only five hits while walking one and striking out five, Samardzija finished his 2019 campaign with a 3.52 ERA over 181 innings. His ERA drop of 2.73 is the largest of any starting pitcher who had at least 40 innings pitched in each of the last two seasons, according to Sports Info Solutions, a feat that should put him in the conversation for NL Comeback Player of the Year.

“All things said, where we were last year, absolutely I’m pretty proud of it,” Samardzija said. “We’ll just repeat that offseason again and pretty much stick to the book. Add a little more to it since we’re not necessarily recovering, stay strong and look forward to next year, 2020.”

Samardzija did not miss a single turn in the rotation this season, a testament to the work he put in over the offseason rebuilding the strength in his right shoulder. The Giants were initially cautious with Samardzija’s workload early in the year—he completed more than six innings only once in his first nine starts—but the reins began to loosen once he showed he could handle more innings.

“This is a strong man and a very determined man,” Bochy said. “We did monitor his workload in Spring Training and the early part of the season. I was going out to get him early. I just wanted him to take some time to build some arm strength because he missed so much time the previous year. Then he ends up being the horse that he is. It’s really impressive, I think, that he’s bounced back. Not just the body of work, but the quality of work that he’s given us.” (M Guardado - MLB.com - September 26, 2019)

Samardzija is quick to the plate, being clocked at 1.3 or 1.4 seconds.

"That's why I don't have to use a slide step," Jeff said.

March 23-April 20, 2018: Jeff was on the DL and could miss three to five weeks with a strained right pectoral muscle.

May 30-July 7, 2018: Jeff was on the DL with right shoulder tightness.

July 15, 2018: Jeff went on the DL with right shoulder inflammation.

September 4-October 29, 2018: The Giants transferred Samardzija to the 60-day disabled list. Jeff will continue to seek information from shoulder specialists as he plots an offseason rehabilitation program.