3 SF Giants players who improved their stock the most with a strong finish

3 SF Giants players who improved their stock the most with a strong finish

3. Reliever Tyler Rogers

There were some really rough moments for Tyler Rogers in 2022. I was mildly surprised that the Giants did not demote him to Triple-A midway through the year as he struggled to find any consistency on the mound.

The veteran reliever yielded seven earned runs in 0.1 innings of work in a wild game against the New York Mets in May. That proved to be the start of a rough patch for Rogers as he posted a 4.89 ERA over the next 42.1 frames.

It got to a point where it seemed possible that the Giants would non-tender the 31-year-old reliever in the offseason. He relies on contact to record outs, which is great when you have a good defense behind you, but the Giants' defense was worth -5 Outs Above Average (OAA) on the mound, so they did him no favors.

Despite his poor surface-level stats, Rogers still excelled at inducing poor contact. He allowed an 84-MPH average exit velocity on batted balls to go along with a 1.4-degree launch angle. The exit velocity mark was the second-best in baseball behind New York Yankees reliever Jonathan Loáisiga.

It felt like it was only a matter of time before Rogers' numbers would fall back in line and that trend took place near the end of the season. The submarine-style reliever finished the year with 11 straight scoreless outings as he looked more like the reliable reliever that Giants fans have come to expect.

His overall numbers do not look bad as he registered a 3.57 ERA, 3.44 FIP, 1.27 WHIP, 5.8 K/9, and a 2.09 SO/W ratio in 68 appearances. If you remove his appearance against the Mets in May, he would have finished with a 2.75 ERA but cherry-picking stats can make any player look good or bad.

The Giants will need to rebuild the bullpen in the offseason but I think they can be comfortable with having a reliever like Rogers in a leverage role. He has proven to be one of the more effective relievers in baseball since the 2019 season.