What happened to the Giants' bullpen in 2016? Why did it fall apart? Originally answered on Oct. 13, 2016.
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This reminds me of the baseball axioms “Line drives are contagious.” This is generally meant to be a rallying cry for hitters, but if line drives really are contagious, then the pitchers are subject to the outbreak as well.
Here is the crazy thing about the Giants' bullpen: Their regular-season ERA ranked 15th among the 30 major league teams [1]. Even more surprising, the first-half ERA was 3.94 and the second-half ERA was 3.33.
Here is an individual look at the Giants' most-used relievers this season [2].
The unit's Wins Above Replacement was about 1.0. By all accounts, its performance was somewhere between average and good, except for one little stat: The Giants led the majors with 32 blown saves [3], including nine (also a major-league high) in the ninth inning.
So, what happened? A combination of things:
1. The offense. The Giants did not have a good offense and were 0-55 when trailing after eight innings. They were 60-6 when leading after eight, which is the franchise's third-worst mark since it moved to San Francisco in 1958. This fantastic McCovey Chronicles article explains it well. Of course, it wasn’t all the offense.
2. The ninth inning. Santiago Casilla led the majors with nine blown saves, and as described above, the Giants blew nine games when leading in the ninth. It seemed the bullpen was good until the ninth and then fell apart. Statistics may “prove” there is no such thing as clutch, but the Giants' bullpen struggled in clutch situations, so you can either say the Giants needed a proven late-inning reliever, or just say it was bad luck.
3. Overmanaging. Bruce Bochy was a master of the bullpen in the championship years of 2012 and 2014, but 2016 was a whole different story. For the first time the Giants' relievers were grumbling that Bochy was overmanaging by relying solely on right-right or left-left matchups, and nobody knew their role. Did Bochy overmanage because the relievers weren’t performing, or were the relievers not performing because Bochy was overmanaging?
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Well, that was a cathartic experience writing this post. Noah Syndergaard summed it up perfectly: "Baseball has a way of ripping your heart out, stabbing it, putting it back in your chest, then healing itself just in time for Spring Training."
Footnotes:
[1] Major League Team Stats " 2016 " Relievers " Dashboard
[2] San Francisco Giants Leaderboards " 2016 " Relievers " Dashboard
[3] Rewind: Bullpen's 32nd and final implosion ends Giants' 2016 season