As of Friday afternoon, 454 different relievers have appeared in a Major League game during the 2024 season. Of all those relievers, Ryan Walker has appeared in the most games, with 39 appearances. In second place is Tyler Rogers with 38. There are 452 relievers who have appeared in fewer games.
Here’s a look at the workload of the Giants’ relievers this season. It was always a hot topic in the Gabe Kapler era, when openers were used more frequently. One of the most undeserved criticisms Kapler received was that he trashed bullpens. He did not do it. Workloads were high overall, but almost always reasonable on an individual level. Still, the reputation endured, and now that the Giants have an extremely average manager (Bob Melvin), bullpen workload isn’t such a hot topic.
Should they be? Let’s dig into how hard (or not) the Giants bullpen has been worked.
Ratio of innings pitched by starters versus relievers
Percentage of innings pitched by RP
The Giants still have a lot of bullpen, and that’s compared to a bullpen-heavy league in a bullpen-heavy era. This hasn’t changed, even though they have one of the best inning guzzlers in the world (Logan Webb) in their rotation.
However, when you look at the average percentage, it’s not like the Giants are complete monsters or outliers. You can understand the appeal of a quasi-traditional roster of excellent starters like the Mariners enjoy, but everyone else is giving virtually 40 percent of their innings to relievers. If you can believe it, the Giants are giving their relievers a lower inning percentage than last year (49.2 percent).
But not all relief appearances are the same. He wants to avoid pitching relievers too often on consecutive days. How have the Giants fared there?
Ryan Walker has been a workhorse in the bullpen. (Jayne Kamin-Oncea/USA Today)
Appearances without a day off
The Giants are not at the top of this category. Still. But they have risen several places over the past week and are now second.
Number of departures without rest
Ideally, this would change as Robbie Ray, Alex Cobb and/or Blake Snell return, but if you’re expecting that troika to have surplus innings in 2024, prepare to be disappointed. Not because I have any bad feelings about any of them, but simply because you should always take the under on innings pitched by players off the disabled list.
However, don’t give too much importance to this. You’ll notice that this group of teams is the same one that appears in the search for teams that have the least amount of rotation in their bullpens. It’s easier to avoid releasing players on consecutive days if you’re constantly pulling players out of the minors and playing the waiver carousel, and if there’s one thing you should know about the current orientation of the Giants’ bullpen, it’s that it’s remarkably stable. . Bring in a Rogers or two, find out where Sean Hjelle works best, send Walker in high-leverage innings, go with Erik Miller or Randy Rodriguez when the situation calls for it, and use Camilo Doval when there’s a lead or a tie. game in the ninth. Rinse and repeat.
While the Giants’ bullpen statistics are iffy as a collective, every player listed there has been solid or excellent this season. When a team has a rhythm like this, and doesn’t mess with, say, Nick Avila or Kai-Wei Teng due to injuries and roster quirks, you’re going to have back-to-back days. Also, consider that the Giants have become an average team when it comes to multi-inning relief outings. They used to lead the world in massive ticket appearances. They don’t do it anymore.
Still, when you look at the zero break leaders, the Giants are well represented. Here’s where his relievers rank in non-stop appearances:
2 (t.) Ryan Walker
2 (t.) Tyler Rogers
10 (t.) Camilo Doval
18 (t.)Erik Miller
60 (t.) Taylor Rogers
101 (t.) Luke Jackson
101 (t.) Sean Hjelle
179 (t.) Randy Rodríguez
That’s a pretty heavy burden for those at the top.
Although it improves a little. Not much, but a little.
Total pitches made
Here’s the same list of pitchers, but now ranked by the total number of pitches they’ve thrown this season.
11. Erik Miller
20. Ryan Walker
31. Camilo Doval
69. Workshops
98. Tyler Rogers
117. Sean Hjelle
142. Randy Rodriguez
195. Lucas Jackson
Tyler Rogers has appeared in more games than anyone in baseball other than Ryan Walker. He has thrown the 98th most pitches among relievers.
That is, to use some advanced scouting jargon, bananas. That same group, once again, but ranked against the rest of baseball in pitches per batter faced.
3. Erik Miller (4.4 pitches per batter)
16. Camilo Doval (4.21)
56. Taylor Rogers (4.06)
76. Ryan Walker (3.99)
119. Randy Rodriguez (3.84)
133. Lucas Jackson (3.8)
182. Sean Hjelle (3.62)
200. Tyler Rogers (3.32)
Oh, I forgot to mention that this ranking was limited to the top 200 pitchers in total pitches thrown. Which means there was no one more efficient than Tyler Rogers on that list, and he wasn’t particularly close. He’s a weirdo. He lives with Professor Xavier in a large mansion in upstate New York and you should be happy to have him pitch for your team.
Number of starts with more than 20 launches made
17. (t.) Camilo Doval (14)
27. (t.) Sean Hjelle (13)
51. (t.) Randy Rodríguez (11)
66. (t.) Erik Miller (10)
125. (t.) Taylor Rogers (8)
150. (t.) Ryan Walker (7)
182. (t.) Luke Jackson (6)
274. (t.) Tyler Rogers (3)
I’m not saying we should throw Tyler Rogers in a lake and see if he floats, but we should definitely see if he weighs the same as a duck, just to be sure.
Final thoughts
I’m not worried at all about Tyler Rogers. I mean I’m worried about him, but not in terms of workload. Just in terms of him not being one of us.
I’m moderately worried about Walker, but not much more than that. He has many appearances, but he has been efficient. If the Giants could really hit consistently, the need to close out the eighth inning would diminish. Maybe that will happen. He is someone to keep an eye on.
Hjelle’s emergence is exactly what this bullpen needed. Without last season’s stalwarts Tristan Beck and Jakob Junis, they needed some length (laughs), but they couldn’t just waste all the quality innings in low-leverage situations. There is a balance here.
Miller worries me a little. He’s working hard on the innings that he throws and he’s throwing a lot of innings and pitches. He’s approaching his biggest workload since he was at Stanford, and that’s probably a bad thing.
Doval worries me a lot. He works when he’s there and his role dictates that he will often pitch relentlessly. However, none of this is a change from previous seasons.
However, all in all, it’s not as bad as it could be. If you look at the Giants bullpen through a lens of “appearances” and “innings pitched,” the picture is bleak. However, the actual workload is underrepresented there, with some pain points to worry about. However, this is the hardest the Giants bullpen has been worked on in a long time. It’s probably something to watch very, very closely.
(Top photo of the Giants making a pitching change: Nuccio DiNuzzo//Keynote USA/Getty Images)
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