As of Friday afternoon, there had been 454 different relievers to appear in a major-league game during the 2024 season. Of all of 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.
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This is a look at the workload of Giants relievers this season. It was always a hot topic in the Gabe Kapler era, when openers were used more often. One of the most undeserved criticisms Kapler received was that he ran bullpens into the ground. He didn’t. The workloads were high in the aggregate, but they were almost always sensible on an individual level. Still, the reputation endured, and now that the Giants have a supremely normal manager (Bob Melvin), bullpen workloads aren’t as much of a hot topic.
Should they be, though? Let’s dig into how hard (or not hard) the Giants’ bullpen has been worked.
Ratio of innings thrown by starters vs. relievers
Team | Reliever IP% |
|---|---|
46.4% | |
46.2% | |
44.8% | |
43.4% | |
43.2% | |
42.7% | |
42.3% | |
41.9% | |
41.8% | |
41.8% | |
41.5% | |
41.1% | |
40.9% | |
40.6% | |
40.4% | |
40.2% | |
40.1% | |
39.7% | |
39.6% | |
39.5% | |
39.4% | |
39.1% | |
39.0% | |
38.9% | |
38.7% | |
37.5% | |
37.2% | |
35.7% | |
34.6% | |
33.6% |
The Giants are still extremely bullpen-heavy, 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 world’s greatest inning-munchers (Logan Webb) in their rotation.
When you look at the median percentage, though, it’s not like the Giants are complete freaks or outliers. You can understand the appeal of a quasi-traditional staff of excellent starters like the one the Mariners are enjoying, but everyone else is pretty much giving 40 percent of their innings to relievers. If you can believe it, the Giants are giving their relievers a lower percentage of innings than they did last year (49.2 percent).
But not all relief appearances are created equal. You want to avoid throwing relievers too often on consecutive days. How have the Giants been doing there?
Appearances without a day off
The Giants aren’t at the top of this category. Yet. But they’ve climbed several spots over the past week and are now second.
Ideally, this would change as Robbie Ray, Alex Cobb and/or Blake Snell come back, but if you’re hoping for surplus innings to come from that troika in 2024, prepare to be disappointed. Not because I have bad feelings about any of them, but just because you should always take the under on innings pitched from players off the IL.
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However, don’t read that much into this. You’ll notice that this group of teams is the same one that appears in a search for teams that have the least amount of turnover in their bullpens. It’s easier to avoid throwing guys on back-to-back days if you’re constantly shuttling players up from the minors and playing the waiver carousel, and if there’s one thing to know about the Giants’ current bullpen orientation, it’s that it’s remarkably stable. Bring in a Rogers or two, figure out where Sean Hjelle works best, send Walker out there in high-leverage innings, go with Erik Miller or Randy Rodríguez 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 stats are iffy as a collective, all of the players listed up there have been solid to excellent this season. When a team has a rhythm like this, and they’re not messing with, say, Nick Avila or Kai-Wei Teng because of injuries and roster weirdness, you’ll get back-to-back days. Also, consider the Giants have become a normal team when it comes to relief outings of multiple innings. They used to lead the world in bulk-inning appearances. They don’t anymore.
Still, when you look at the zero-rest leaders, the Giants are well-represented. Here’s where their relievers rank in zero-rest 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 is quite the heavy load for those guys at the top.
It gets a little better, though. Not much, but a little.
Total pitches thrown
Here’s that same list of pitchers, but now ranked by how many total pitches they’ve thrown this season.
11. Erik Miller
20. Ryan Walker
31. Camilo Doval
69. Taylor Rogers
98. Tyler Rogers
117. Sean Hjelle
142. Randy Rodríguez
195. Luke Jackson
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Tyler Rogers has appeared in more games than anyone else in baseball, other than Ryan Walker. He’s thrown the 98th-most pitches among relievers.
This is, to use some advanced scouting lingo, bananas. That same group, one more time, 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 Rodríguez (3.84)
133. Luke Jackson (3.8)
182. Sean Hjelle (3.62)
200. Tyler Rogers (3.32)
Oh, forgot to mention that this ranking was limited to the top 200 pitchers in total pitches thrown. Which means there was nobody more efficient than Tyler Rogers on that list, and it wasn’t particularly close. He’s a freak. He lives with Professor Xavier in a big mansion in upstate New York, and you should just be happy that he pitches for your team.
Number of outings with more than 20 pitches thrown
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 that we should throw Tyler Rogers into 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 about Tyler Rogers at all. 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 concerned about Walker, but not much more than that. He has a lot of appearances, but he’s been efficient. If the Giants could actually hit with any consistency, the need for eighth-inning shutdowns would lessen. Maybe that’ll happen. He’s one to watch.
Hjelle’s emergence is exactly what this bullpen needed. Without last season’s bulk inning stalwarts Tristan Beck and Jakob Junis, they needed a little length (lol), but they couldn’t just waste all of the quality innings in low-leverage situations. Here’s a balance.
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Miller concerns me a little. He’s working hard in the innings he throws, and he’s throwing a lot of innings and pitches. He’s approaching his heaviest workload since he was at Stanford, and that’s probably a bad thing.
Doval concerns me quite a bit. He labors when he’s in there, and his role dictates that he’ll often pitch without rest. None of this is a change from previous seasons, though.
All told, though, it’s not as bad as it could be. If you’re looking at the Giants’ bullpen through a lens of “appearances” and “innings pitched,” it’s a bleak picture. The actual workload is underrepresented there, though, with a few hot spots to worry about. This is as hard as a Giants bullpen has been worked in a while, though. It’s probably something to watch very, very closely.
(Top photo of the Giants making a pitching change: Nuccio DiNuzzo / Getty Images)