San Francisco Giants 2019 Spring Training Preview: Relief Pitchers

Pitchers and catchers are starting to report to Spring Training for the San Francisco Giants. This is not a drill. Baseball is just around the corner. This is exciting.

I know the San Francisco Giants universe has been abuzz the last few days with all of the Bryce Harper rumors swirling around, but let’s not lose sight of the guys that actually are on the team. We at Around the Foghorn decided to take a look at each position group and try to preview what we might be able to expect from each group heading into the 2019 season. I was at work while everyone was staking claim to the groups they wanted to write about so I ended up getting stuck with the relievers. Hooray.

The Giants relief core is going to look relatively the same as it did last year. Which, may not necessarily be a good thing. Many fans pointed to the league leading 30 blown saves, but don’t mention that they were tied for 8th in the league in save opportunities with 66. They were the only team in the top 10 for save opportunities with at sub .500 record. The Giants bullpen was consistently thrown into tight situations without much hope of the offense bailing them out or extending leads. Overall, the bullpen was slightly above average by most measures and if they had a little more breathing room, it’s possible they might have fared better.

With many familiar faces returning to the 2019 San Francisco Giants bullpen, there is reason to believe the Giants bullpen can repeat their output from the 2018 season. But once again the Giants bullpen will be dependent on their offense to make their lives a little easier. The Giants are still looking into ways to bolster their offense, which could have major implications on how their bullpen performs. If the Giants enter the 2018 season with the current offensive personnel, the bullpen could look forward to another average season. Although, another year of slightly above average production is not a given as the group as a whole is still pretty suspect and going into 2019 none of the bullpen pitchers have clearly defined roles. Some of them might even be opening games this year, so who knows what’s going on anymore? I don’t. I guess first we’ll take a look at those familiar faces I was talking about.