I’m just saying, if Trevor Gott blows 14 or 15 more saves, you have to start considering making some changes in the bullpen.
Yes, for the third time in the last 4 games, the Giants entered the ninth inning with a lead and their closer on the mound, and for the fourth time in 4 games, they lost. In the first two of those losses, there was a horrific defensive miscue to blame — Wilmer Flores not getting a sure out in the first game and Hunter Pence breaking the wrong way and missing a routine fly ball in the second — but last night, there was just a base hit, and then a bad pitch and a home run.
Trevor Gott cannot be the closer anymore, of course. Everyone agrees on that now, with Gabe Kapler admitting that the Giants will have to “look for a softer landing spot for him and evaluate other options.” Giants fans have seen this before, with Sergio Romo in 2014 and Santiago Casilla in 2016. You want to stick with your guys, but sometimes that just won’t work.
Going by those two experiences, the Giants have a 50% chance of winning the World Series this year. Not bad!
A lot of fans took Kapler’s decision to throw Gott back out there Saturday after his awful outing Friday to be a bad one, and when he emerged from the bullpen in Anaheim last night in a one run game after two consecutive disasters, it practically seemed to be an act of lunacy. It’s not hard to see where Kapler was coming from: he knows that this year doesn’t really matter a whole lot, and he wanted the players to know that he would trust them and have their backs, and if he could get Trevor Gott’s confidence fixed in the process, well, so much the better.
It, uh, didn’t work out. Nobody will ever actually admit that their team isn’t talented enough to compete, and the players probably don’t think that he’ll trust them but rather that he’ll stubbornly stick with his guys long past the time it makes sense, and we can be reasonably sure that Trevor Gott’s confidence is not at an all-time high. It was a disaster in every way other than the Giants leapfrogging the Angels for the 4th worst record in the majors, meaning they’re now in position for the number 4 draft pick next year instead of number 5. Hey, you gotta have goals!
So what happens with the closer now? The reason Gott got the job was that the team wasn’t exactly overflowing with better options, and almost a month into the season, the team continues to not be overflowing with better options. Excluding starters and Heinemen pitching in relief, the top 3 relievers by FIP, which measures how well a pitcher has pitched in a way that mostly separates it from the luck of which batted balls happened to turn into outs , this year have been Sam Selman, Tyler Rogers, and Tony Watson, and Watson’s sitting at an entirely mediocre 4.49. Shaun Anderson, whose slider looked so good in the early going, is cruising at an 8.18 FIP and should not be an option.
So that means the best options for closer right now are:
Sam Selman, who was bad last year in the majors and has been quite good this year, but only in 8 1/3 innings. That is not a large sample size on which to base a closer decision.
Tyler Rogers, who Kapler wants to deploy like a Swiss Army knife throughout the game instead of restricting him to one inning.
Tony Watson, who has Veteran Savvy and Knows How To Pitch and also is getting by on moxie alone in a way that is certainly not sustainable long-term.
There are other guys you could consider down the line, if you want. Sam Coonrod, who’s coming back from injury, showed some very impressive stuff this year, but his results were lacking. Caleb Baragar showed some very impressive stuff this year, but his results have been lacking. Wandy Peralta Ctrl-V you get the joke. Conner Menez and Jarlin Garcia have had good results, but have fairly low strikeout totals and are unlikely to keep that success going if they keep pitching the way they have this season.
There’s no one who’s a sure bet to be a lockdown closer. Selman has performed the best, but has no major league track record; Watson has the major league track record, but has been more Perfectly Acceptable this year than Elite Closer. And as much as Kapler is probably too much in love with the idea of using Rogers for multiple innings and then again the next day, the team does legitimately need arms to be effective as middle relievers or setup men, and it’s probably not a great idea to take him out of that role and put him in a much more stressful one.
This is a tough decision, and I don’t envy Kapler for having to make it. If the new closer blows a save or two, well, we all remember the bullpentastrophe of 2016, how every reliever who came in to close the game all fell on their faces and had dirt all over their faces and then people were like, “Hey, look at that closer with dirt all over his face” and then other people would laugh. The problem compounded itself, is what I’m trying to say, and became unsolvable, and then the Giants went out that offseason and spent an awful large sum of money on Mark Melancon.
I don’t know what the right call is. I would probably go with Selman, but that’s probably putting too much faith in excellent 2019 minor league and 2020 major league numbers, and not nearly enough in 2019 major league numbers. I don’t know what else there is to do. The bullpen just isn’t talented enough, and it’s going to cost the team games, and boy, the 2020 Giants just do not have the games to spare.