Fangraphs took notice of the Guardians' bullpen.
...And as a unit, I don’t think any group has seen more players come out of nowhere with greater success this season than the Guardians bullpen.
Trevor Stephan (UCL reconstruction) and James Karinchak (shoulder inflammation) are both on the 60-day IL, while Sam Hentges (finger inflammation) is on the 15-day IL; all three played key roles last year ahead of closer Emmanuel Clase. Despite those absences, the Guardians are in a virtual tie for first place in reliever WAR, helping propel the team to a 9-3 start.
Clase has been great even with velocity that continues to trend slightly downward, but the only other pitcher with significant closing experience on the team is Scott Barlow, and he’s come out of the gates slowly. Rather, it’s the ragtag bunch of inexperienced arms who have kept the Guardians afloat despite all of the IL time.
Hunter Gaddis was disastrous in his first big league action in 2022, improved to decent last year, and is now pumping 98-99 mph heat. Sidearmer Nick Sandlin has given up just one hit to 26 batters. Rookie Cade Smith has a strikeout rate above 40% thanks to a nasty fastball/splitter combo. Fellow rookie Tim Herrin is holding things down as the bullpen’s sole lefty until Hentges returns. And former top prospect Tyler Beede (!!!) — who pitched in Japan last year and came into 2024 with a 5.34 ERA across 187 innings in the majors — appears to have reinvented himself, with a strikeout rate nearly as high as Smith’s and, like Sandlin, just one hit allowed so far.
The bullpen is the place where pitchers rise from the ashes of unheralded, underwhelming, or all-but-dead careers, allowing teams to cobble together largely anonymous groups that help them make the playoffs. And until you get to Clase, one of the truly elite closers in the game, it might be relative unknown after relative unknown who’s shutting you down in Cleveland — for now, at least.
Bullpens are, of course, notoriously fickle, but the Guardians have depth that I didn’t think they possessed when Stephan, Karinchak, and Hentges all went down. They’ve got some tough decisions to make when Hentges and perhaps Karinchak come back (Stephan is out for the year), but they’ve also got flexibility: only Barlow and Beede can’t be optioned to the minors. And in a league where the best pitching staffs are often determined by a war of attrition, the Guardians are doing quite the job on the front lines, and having more men to send into battle is always extremely valuable.