Bullpen in 2025: duck and cover

[Smithian]

Rizzo cut $7.5 million worth of reliever contracts before June 1. He made some smart signings on the hitting side, but the pitching signings have been a disaster. Nats would be in a world of hurt if our system didn't spit out a few relievers this Spring.

I've never trusted Rizzo with bullpen signings. I much prefer when he just churns through arms or makes trades. Even going back to the 2010's his track record on trying to build a bullpen in FA has been terrible.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

Eh, the guys cut were only to be placeholders, which is why most were cheap and late
 The organization planned on bringing up minor leaguers and picking thru released guys (like Chafin). You can argue that we'd have been better off pooling that money on one of the many higher tier fa relievers, but they tried to plug multiple holes instead. I will guess they thought long term, Ferrer closes, so didn't want to go several years on closers

[IanRubbish]

Rizzo cut $7.5 million worth of reliever contracts before June 1. He made some smart signings on the hitting side, but the pitching signings have been a disaster. Nats would be in a world of hurt if our system didn't spit out a few relievers this Spring.

I've never trusted Rizzo with bullpen signings. I much prefer when he just churns through arms or makes trades. Even going back to the 2010's his track record on trying to build a bullpen in FA has been terrible.

Remarkable that they thrashed Kyle Finnegan to save $3 million and then blew $7.5 million on garbage arms.  In the same offseason where they traded away the reliever with the highest K/IP rate last year in Robert Garcia. 

Issue with Rizzo is he's always looking for "tools" aka guys who give him a man crush.  Relievers aren't like that, they're up and down and many of them throw hard, that doesn't make them stand out.  It's like he's completely blind as to who makes a good reliever.

[Slateman]

Rizzo cut $7.5 million worth of reliever contracts before June 1. He made some smart signings on the hitting side, but the pitching signings have been a disaster. Nats would be in a world of hurt if our system didn't spit out a few relievers this Spring.

I've never trusted Rizzo with bullpen signings. I much prefer when he just churns through arms or makes trades. Even going back to the 2010's his track record on trying to build a bullpen in FA has been terrible.

I think it's pretty clear that Rizzo is beholden to a tight budget. He tried to grab some bounce back guys. All three are misses. At least he's cutting bait rather than trying to stick with it.

Still, we're five games back of the WC on June 1st. On the one hand, we're competing. On the other, that would be a much narrower gap (and possibly flipped) of we had ownership that would maintain a proper payroll.

[Smithian]

There are team who go entire offseasons with no pickups. For this team to sign three guys, including two for $3 mil, and have all three fail is a pretty big miss.

I give credit to the team for cutting them loose early versus last several years when they'd probably have pitched them through the deadline minimum. Still a tough look. The book is still out on Soroka, but at this point the Nats would have been better off setting that $16.5 million on fire than signing the pitchers they did.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

Maybe I'm too sunshiney about this, but right now, we have 5 relievers that are internally developed, 2 free agents (Finnegan and Chafin), and one waiver claim developed elsewhere (Salazar). They've been functioning pretty effectively for the past few weeks. It would have been great to have hit on another reliever in Free agency, but the idea that they wouldn't cut their losses and would keep trotting out lottery ticket free agents in a vain hope that they'd turn around enough to be tradable seems wrong.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

article on Henry's conversion to a reliever. Talks about his injuries over the past 4 years, almost giving up baseball last year when he was dealing with a shoulder pain that ultimately proved to be strains of both the lat and triceps. We commented on his start up in 2024, shut down, come back, and disappearance. This kind of explains it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2025/06/02/nationals-cole-henry/

Last May, he was diagnosed with a mild strain of his lat muscle. A month later, when he was supposed to return, he couldn’t get his right arm to whip forward. “Like my body was trying to protect myself,” Henry said. He would grunt, clench his teeth and the radar gun would read 86 mph. Imaging revealed a strain in both his lat and triceps muscles. His season was over early. Again.

However, since his move to the bullpen this spring, the results have been quite good:

Eleven months later, not only are his baseball dreams not over — they’re fully realized. Sure, he never imagined his first appearance in the majors would be out of the bullpen. He was LSU’s ace not so long ago and didn’t convert to a full-time role in relief until this spring. He’s been one of baseball’s best relievers since. Across his first two months in the majors, Henry has a 2.14 ERA and has not allowed a run in 17 of his 18 appearances. He held opponents to a .070 batting average in May.

Summarizes the decision he made about continuing after talks with his wife and his Dad, a former minor league pitcher. Just decided to pitch and leave it up to fate.

“I mean, we leave stuff up to fate as a pitcher every single day, right?” he said. “As soon as that ball leaves your hand, you can’t control what happens.” His teammate, veteran lefty Andrew Chafin, often describes pitching as, “You just throw it and hope for the best.” He could get on board with that.

[IanRubbish]

article on Henry's conversion to a reliever

It's a really nice story, but Rutledge has the same K-BB-HR ratios, just an ERA that got knocked around due to one bad outing.  This year is turning into the Revenge of the Rizzo Man Crushes, with another edition coming soon with Cade Cavalli. 

[IanRubbish]

Maybe I'm too sunshiney about this, but right now, we have 5 relievers that are internally developed, 2 free agents (Finnegan and Chafin), and one waiver claim developed elsewhere (Salazar). They've been functioning pretty effectively for the past few weeks. It would have been great to have hit on another reliever in Free agency, but the idea that they wouldn't cut their losses and would keep trotting out lottery ticket free agents in a vain hope that they'd turn around enough to be tradable seems wrong.

I'd say it's more partly sunny that sunshine at this point.  Bullpen ERA was 20th in MLB during May at 4.62.  I'll grant them the sunshine when they have a month at 15th or higher.   Also, their history with rentals is that they'll Senzel them if they make less than $5 million, and have no chance of having any trade value at the deadline. 

[JCA-CrystalCity]

I'd say it's more partly sunny that sunshine at this point.  Bullpen ERA was 20th in MLB during May at 4.62.  I'll grant them the sunshine when they have a month at 15th or higher.   Also, their history with rentals is that they'll Senzel them if they make less than $5 million, and have no chance of having any trade value at the deadline. 

Well, another way to look at the bullpen is to look at win probability added (WPA). In May, the Nats were 13th, with a WPA of 0.35.
https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/major-league?pos=all&lg=all&qual=0&season=2025&season1=2025&ind=0&team=0%2Cts&rost=0&filter=&players=0&stats=rel&type=3&month=5&sortcol=1&sortdir=default&pagenum=1

Eye test, I feel comfortable with Henry, Chafin in his match-ups, generally Ferrer and Lord, and Finnegan gets results . Rutledge is OK in low leverage, and Brzykcy is showing signs after a rough stretch (right when Rutledge is showing signs the other way). Looking harder at the win probability individual stats, Lopez and Rutledge were equally rough in WPA subtracted, but Rutledge has been used in low leverage and has lower expectations. Lopez was the highest leverage set up guy, and he did not perform. No need to try to develop him like Rutledge, Henry, Lord, and Ferrer, so they just cut him rather than give him a stint as low lev guy. All of the internal guys, including Brzykcy, had better "clutch" performance (how much better the pitcher performed in higher lev appearances that context neutral numbers); Lopez was as bad as Sims, who shared his fate.
https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/major-league?pos=all&lg=all&qual=0&season=2025&season1=2025&ind=0&rost=0&filter=&players=0&stats=rel&type=3&month=5&sortcol=9&sortdir=default&team=24&pagenum=1