This ugly Giants bullpen stat makes offseason work look even more baffling

Coming into this season, there were a lot of fears about the SF Giants’ bullpen. Those fears have proven to be well-founded after yet another bullpen implosion on Thursday led to a 9-6 loss against the Athletics. A jarring stat shows just how terrible the team’s plan was for the bullpen in the offseason.

The Giants went shopping in the bargain aisle to address the bullpen and they got what they paid for. While the team’s bullpen ERA has been pretty ghastly, their relievers’ FIP, or Fielding Independent Pitching which is meant to measure what a pitcher’s ERA should be based on things the pitcher can control, has been even worse.

Every single reliever they signed in the offseason has a worse FIP than their ERA which shows that even with how bad the bullpen has been, the Giants might actually be lucky that it’s not worse.

Anyone could have seen Giants' bullpen struggles coming

Even back in December I wrote an article titled, “SF Giants are setting Tony Vitello up for failure with bullpen strategy.” I don’t bring that up to imply I’m some Nostradamus, it’s to show that even some internet oaf like me could’ve seen what's happened this year from a mile away.

Everyone saw it coming which is why it was so baffling that the front office, led by president of baseball operations Buster Posey, did not invest more meaningfully in the bullpen.

When Posey was questioned about the lack of investment in the bullpen on KNBR a month ago he snapped and implied that the team’s only two choices were to do what it did, i.e. sign a bunch of cheap and/or injured relievers and call it a day, or sign the premier closer on the market Edwín Diaz like the Los Angeles Dodgers did only for him to go down with an injury.

It’s fair to say that bullpen construction is not easy and the Giants understandably did not want another Mark Melancon situation, but they clearly could have and should have done more to shore up the bullpen.

Posey dodged a KNBR appearance on Thursday likely because he knew he’d be asked about his two least favorite things: the bullpen and Pride Night. So he let team CEO Larry Baer go out there and defend the team’s bullpen approach by saying the team got a bad break by losing Randy Rodríguez. Sure, but that happened last season and the team had the whole offseason to find a replacement.

There are no good answers to explain what the Giants chose to do with the bullpen in the offseason. The numbers are ugly and they will likely only get worse. One just has to hope this leads to a more meaningful investment in the bullpen during the offseason. 

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