In an Era of Caution, Logan Webb Is an Old-School Workhorse Pitcher

The Giants righty relishes in the starter’s role as the driving narrative force of baseball.

Logan Webb has plenty of numbers to take pride in this year. He boasts one of the lowest walk rates in MLB. He’s one of just two starters to post an ERA+ above 130 in each of the past three seasons. (The other is Shohei Ohtani.) He’s increased his strikeout rate from last year and has been the most dependable member of the rotation for the contending Giants. But there’s one statistic the righty holds especially dear.

His innings pitched.

Webb leads MLB in innings at 163. (He doesn’t have too much breathing room—Sandy Alcantara, Gerrit Cole and Zac Gallen all sit within striking distance—but Webb has led the pack for much of the year.) And if you think starters might not give much importance to something as basic as raw innings nowadays? Think again. For Webb, this means as much as just about any statistical achievement possibly could.

“It’s something I’m trying to be,” Webb says. “A goal of mine was to lead the league in innings this year, and that’s a goal where the team has to obviously let me keep going six or seven or eight. But it’s been awesome. They trust me, and I’m just trying to throw as many innings as I can.”

That last bit is key. To lead baseball in innings has always required good pitching—or good enough pitching—alongside good health and good luck. But now it requires an extra layer of organizational trust and strategy. The average start today lasts just over five innings. (That’s been true for a few years now: The league average has been under 5⅓ since 2018.) There are a slew of reasons for that: When bullpens are historically deep, pitchers are throwing harder than ever, and teams have extraordinarily detailed medical data prompting them to be extraordinarily careful; it naturally follows that starts have become much shorter. If 120 pitches isn’t what it used to be, 90 pitches isn’t, either. (The league average per start this year has been 86.) To consistently work into the seventh or eighth inning, then, requires more than just a strong individual performance. It requires a belief in the starter that used to be implicit but now feels increasingly rare.

Webb feels he’s finally earned that. And it’s something he’s been working toward as long as he’s been in MLB.

Webb is one of just 16 pitchers to throw a complete game shutout this year :: Stan Szeto/USA TODAY Sports

When he was called up by the Giants for his major league debut in August 2019, Webb joined a pitching staff that included Madison Bumgarner, Jeff Samardzija and Johnny Cueto: “guys who seemed like they could go five, six straight years throwing 200” innings. (Bumgarner has passed the 200 IP mark seven times; Samardzija did it five times and Cueto four.) Webb had lots to learn from them as a rookie. But this durability made a particular impression on him. It wasn’t just the idea of endurance. It was the idea that going deep into games was a job requirement, that getting themselves out of jams was part of the deal, that pitching was about taking pride in working through difficult moments rather than avoiding them altogether.

“I just wanted to be an old-school type pitcher,” Webb says. “Just like those guys were.”

In a sense, he was already situated for that. His approach is naturally somewhat old-school: Rather than trying to overpower hitters with velocity, Webb relies instead on the movement of his sinker and slider, with an increased emphasis this year on his changeup, too. (He generally tops out at about 93 mph.) But there’s much more to getting established as a workhorse than simply working with less velo. The 200-inning mark was especially important to Webb. Once upon a time, every team had one or two pitchers hit that number in a given season. (In 1996, the year Webb was born, 49 starters reached the milestone.) But the number has fallen as pitching strategy has been reshaped by analytics. In 2019, when Webb debuted, 15 pitchers threw 200 innings. Last season? There were just eight.

Webb was tantalizingly close to being one of them: He finished the season at 192⅓ IP, a number he’s quick to summon off the top of his head, down to that last fractional bit. He’d thought for much of the year that he would have a good chance at finally reaching the milestone. Down the stretch, however, San Francisco decided to limit his innings in the interest of long-term health, ruling out his final scheduled appearance and capping each of his previous two starts at fewer than six innings. Webb understood the Giants’ thinking and was fine to go along with it. But it only strengthened his commitment to throwing 200 innings in 2023.

So far, he’s on track for that. He hopes that ends with the innings crown. But even if it doesn’t, his experience this year has only increased his appreciation for seeing pitchers work deep into games. Webb loves doing it himself. Yet he loves watching other guys do it, too. The starter’s role as the driving narrative force of baseball has become somewhat compromised in recent years. But that makes it feel all the more precious when a starter is given a chance to make it happen.

“I do like seeing guys in the seventh or the eighth—not against us, obviously, but I do like looking around and seeing that,” Webb says. “I miss that.”

Webb’s season has also included his first complete game in the majors, back in July, with a 1–0 win over the Rockies. That has been his goal every time he steps on the mound for years now. To finally do it—and in a close, tough win, at that—was like a dream. It’s something Webb has discussed at length with Giants manager Gabe Kapler. He likes that the team can be in the seventh or eighth inning, with a narrow lead or even without one at all, with the expectation that he gets the opportunity to finish his work.

“I always get jealous when other guys do it,” Webb says. “I was just so excited for it.”

So, yes, Webb likes strikeouts, and he likes manufacturing highlights, and he likes being featured on Pitching Ninja. But he loves the idea that his work is something more than the sum of those parts. And it doesn’t mean less in an era when every workload is carefully managed, and no one assumes a pitcher will go the distance. It means more.