Cleveland Baseball Insider

The Guardians Bullpen Has A Glaring Flaw

The Cleveland Guardians' bullpen has one of the best ERAs in baseball but also strikeout the fewest batters.

Tommy Wild

The Guardians Bullpen Has A Glaring Flaw
The Guardians Bullpen Has A Glaring Flaw /
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The Cleveland Guardians have had a great offense, fantastic starting pitching, and quality bullpen this season. The problem with this is that they've struggled to have all three click simultaneously. 

The bullpen has been inconsistent throughout the year and has had its fair share of meltdowns over the last few weeks. Let's take a look at what the relief pitchers have done well and what is holding them back.

First off, the Guardians' bullpen isn't bad when comparing them to the rest of the league. They have the fifth-best team ERA (3.60) in all of baseball and third-best in the American League. The bullpen also has an opponent average of .230 which is top-five in baseball as well. 

However, the juxtaposition of this is staggering and is becoming a glaring flaw for this team moving forward. Cleveland may not be giving up runs or allowing hits at an alarming rate, but they also aren't striking batters out either.

Cleveland's relievers have struck out 419 batters this season which is in the bottom five in baseball and 27th in the AL. The Guardians are clearly relying on their defense to help them get outs which can be a dangerous game to play at times.

The reliever with the highest strikeouts per nine innings this season has been James Karinchak (12.4) but he hasn't seen Big League action since June 9. This was why Terry Francona continued to put him in situations where the opponent had RISP with fewer than two outs. Karinchak was really the only option he had. 

Nick Sandlin currently has the highest SO9 of 9.9 (28.3%) but he also has one of the highest strikeout/walk ratios (3.06) on the team too. 

Emmanuel Clase, who's been the team's All-Star closer the last two seasons, has an SO9 of 8.6 and that falls in the 44th percentile in the Big Leagues. He's giving up way more contact this season which has caused Clase's WHIP to spike to 1.196 (the highest in the bullpen) after posting a 0.729 WHIP in 2022.

So, Cleveland's bullpen isn't giving up a ton of runs, but they are giving up hits. They aren't necessarily pitchers who walk a lot of batters, but they also don't strikeout them out either. 

This can cause a messy situation in games that are late and close. 

One or two runs may only bump an ERA up slightly, but the Guardians have played in more one-run games than any other team in baseball this season. Cleveland's 45 one-run games (21-24 record) lead the American League and they've been walked off nine times which is the second-most in baseball.

Yes, the bullpen could be better at not allowing runs, but the offense has also struggled to give them a cushion to work with too. 

The Guardians' goal moving forward needs to be either to find strikeout pitchers via free agency or develop some of their young arms to be that for the bullpen. Tim Herrin has shown promise as a punch-out guy with an SO9 of 10.4, but he also gives up a lot of hits too.

Cleveland's bullpen would greatly improve if they add one or two pitchers that have a high strikeout rate.

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Read More:

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Guardians Rookie Starting Rotation Has Been One Of MLB's Best

Tyler Freeman Activated From IL, Guardians Roster Moves

There's A Spot For Ramon Laureano On The Guardians In The Future

No One Wants To Pitch To Jose Ramirez

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Photo Credit © Ken Blaze-USA TODAY Sports

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Tommy Wild
TOMMY WILD

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