SF bullpen looks ready for playoffs
Starting rotation is questionable, though
The days of the Giants relying on the core four of Javier Lopez, Sergio Romo, Jeremy Affeldt and Santiago Casilla are long gone. But as the team presses toward the postseason, first-year manager Gabe Kapler has watched his young bullpen blossom into one of the most effective groups in the majors.
The Giants’ 4.28 bullpen ERA ranks 13th out of 30 teams, but since Trevor Gott blew his third consecutive save on Aug. 17 against the Angels, the team’s 2.17 bullpen ERA is tops in the league.
Four years after the Giants signed Mark Melancon to a fouryear, $64 million contract in an effort to fix the team’s ninth-inning woes, the organization has shifted its approach to building a bullpen. Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi spent almost nothing to assemble the group as left-hander Tony Watson, who signed a three-year deal with the club when Bobby Evans was the general manager, is the only reliever the organization acquired through major league free agency.
The Giants only had three relievers on their Opening Day roster with more than 75 career games and have three rookies among the top four pitchers on the staff in appearances, but the bullpen has outperformed even the Dodgers and Padres down the stretch and has been particularly impressive during September.
Entering the 2019 season, neither Sam Selman nor Caleb Baragar were on track to pitch in the majors, but both have transformed their careers in the Giants’ organization.
Selman signed as a minor league free agent prior to 2019 and posted one of the highest strikeout rates in all of minor league baseball last year before earning his first promotion to the big leagues. Baragar had bounced between the rotation and the bullpen at the lower levels of the Giants’ organization since being drafted in the ninth round of 2016 but took off as a starter at Double-A Richmond when coaches pushed him to start throwing his fastball up in the strike zone.
Right-hander Tyler Rogers has the slowest average fastball velocity in the majors, but he’s posted a 1.65 ERA over his last 16 games and recovered from earlyseason struggles. Another right-hander, Sam Coonrod, routinely touches 100 miles per hour on the radar gun and showed the kind of overpowering potential he has while striking out the side in an inning in Monday’s 7-2 loss to the Rockies.
With veteran lefties Tony Watson and Jarlín García combining to allow one earned run in 30 innings this year and veteran right-hander Trevor Cahill moving from the rotation to the bullpen with his 3.52 ERA, the Giants now have a few more experienced pitchers than they did at the beginning of the season when both García and Cahill were on the injured list.
Should the Giants make the postseason, it appears the bullpen has the potential to be a major weapon for Kapler. The challenge, of course, is whether the starting rotation has enough firepower to help the club secure a spot in October.
The Giants’ 5.17 rotation ERA is 21st in the majors and outside of free-agent signee Kevin Gausman, the team hasn’t had any consistent starters. Kapler expected Johnny Cueto and Jeff Samardzija to be anchors in the rotation, but Cueto is set to finish the season with the highest ERA of his career while Samardzija has been kept off the roster due to a shoulder injury and concerns about his effectiveness following three early-season starts in which he posted a 9.88 ERA.