The curious case of Taylor Rogers
Has he had a good year or a bad year? That question is answered within!
Over the offseason, the Giants signed Taylor Rogers to a 3-year deal that averages $11 million a year. The idea was that he could shore up the left side of the bullpen, serve as a bridge to Camilo Doval in the 9th inning, and even step in himself as closer if Doval faltered. Sure, his ERA wasn’t great in 2022, but he’d been so good for so long that he was sure to rebound. His strikeout and walk numbers were still great; he just had bad luck with batted balls. It seemed like a cinch.
My friends, I regret to inform you that it was not a cinch.
In 6 games this year, Taylor Rogers has walked 6, given up 7 earned runs, and recorded 10 outs. He has had exactly one outing in which he did not give up a run, a game against the Royals where he went two thirds of an inning and recorded his only strikeout of the year. He has an ERA of 18.90, though to be fair, his FIP is just 15.92 and his xFIP is a positively miniscule 11.92. Per Fangraphs, he has been the 4th least valuable pitcher in the majors so far this year.
So Taylor Rogers has been somewhat subpar. But why?
The first clue: batters aren’t swinging through his pitches. When Rogers came into the league, his swing-and-miss pitch was the curveball. After a couple years with the Twins, he developed a slider which took its place as his go-to strikeout pitch. His main fastball has always been a sinker, and while it’s been off-and-on when it comes to swingthroughs, it’s gotten worse this year. That slider? A lot worse. His new cutter? Also terrible.
What’s happened with the sinker and slider? They’ve lost horizontal movement. They’ve lost vertical movement. They’ve lost velocity (1.4 MPH for the slider and 2.4 MPH for the sinker). The pitches are straighter and slower, so they’re more hittable. He’s giving up way more fly balls and way fewer ground balls. He’s inducing almost no soft contact.
And then there’s that cutter. In early April, it was the focus of all the Taylor Rogers hype articles, that new cutter that he’d developed in just 10 days at the end of Spring Training. Brian Bannister showed it to him and he took to it immediately! Tyler Rogers caught the cutter when they were playing catch and had trouble getting it in the glove right because it had so much movement! The sinker and slider movement were getting too similar so the cutter was a new weapon to counter that!
Bullshit. It’s all bullshit. This is why you should carry a large grain of salt with you at all times in late March and early April, because you never know when you’ll need it. The cutter got a little test at the end of the Cactus League, did well, and has tanked since being deployed in games that matter. It’s been an uncompetitive pitch, and it needs to be fixed or scrapped.
Here’s what that has all led to: terrible pitching. Did you think there would be some joke or funny reference or ironic turn of phrase there? No. Taylor Rogers has been pitching terribly, and there’s no sugarcoating it.
When it comes to balls and strikes, Rogers is getting significantly fewer swings on balls outside of the strike zone, and significantly more on balls in the strike zone, and batters are making way, way more contact on both, especially the balls in the zone. He’s getting swinging strikes on only 4.3% of pitches (his career average: 10.4%, and it hasn’t been below 10% since 2017) and called strikes on 13% (his career average: 21.5%, and it’s never been below 19%).
What this all comes down to is that Taylor Rogers is pitching like someone who is injured. That doesn't necessarily mean he has an injury (occasionally mechanical issues can cause similar results), but his performance has been what you would expect from someone with a bad arm or shoulder. He has lost too much too fast for this to be at all luck-related. He should have been better than this. It wasn’t a bad bet that he would be better than this. But the reality is that he isn’t, and now the team has to fix him or lose a bunch more games.
I’m guessing injury. It seems that the Giants are cursed when acquiring expensive relievers - Benitez, Melancon, and now Taylor Rogers. This is the one area where Zaidi DumpsterDiving(tm) yields the best results.
Can I just agree with this post without clicking on the little heart icon? I feel like clicking the heart might imply that I like or love the situation, which I most certainly do not.
Also, this summarizes how I feel about the Giants in general.