The World Series this year was expected to feature a huge showdown between power hitters Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani, but instead, players like Mark Leiter Jr., Luke Weaver, Alex Vesia, and Anthony Banda took center stage.
This Fall Classic highlighted how important a strong bullpen is, especially during the postseason. However, it has also raised concerns from people like superagent Scott Boras and players’ union head Tony Clark, who worry that pitchers’ arms are being overworked. Still, building a reliable bullpen remains a tough task.
“You need so many arms over the course of the season, and in the postseason, it’s even more magnified,” said Perry Minasian, general manager of the Los Angeles Angels. “Quality arms, quality strikes. But quantity is a big deal, too. Where do you get it?”
For most casual baseball fans, the bullpen is often an afterthought. Middle relievers, in particular, don’t get the attention that comes with closing out games in the ninth inning.
They often work in the background, coming in to get tough outs in high-pressure situations, similar to NFL offensive linemen — noticed mainly when something goes wrong.
In the World Series, the Dodgers used Vesia, Banda, and Michael Kopech in four of the five games. Blake Treinen and Brusdar Graterol also appeared in three games. Together, they pitched 15 1/3 innings, often in critical moments, and gave up five runs. That’s a 2.93 ERA.
For a group of players most casual fans don’t know, that’s pretty impressive.
“I have a lot of good players, and they understand that it’s about getting 27 outs a night,” said Dodgers manager Dave Roberts. “It could be anyone at any given moment.”
Building a major league bullpen is interesting because cost isn’t usually a huge barrier, making it one of the more equal positions in a sport without a salary cap. Banda ($740,000), Vesia ($1 million), Treinen ($1 million), Kopech ($3 million), and Graterol ($2.7 million) earned far less than their teammate Ohtani, who signed a record-breaking $700 million, 10-year deal last offseason.
Instead of money, success in building a bullpen comes down to scouting, player development, and sometimes luck. It’s often more about creativity than strict numbers.
“I wish we knew,” said Erik Neander, president of baseball operations for Tampa Bay. “We would have won more games last year.”
Scott Boras is one of the people concerned about how relievers are being used. Clay Holmes of the Yankees pitched in all five games of the World Series, and it’s clear that pitchers — especially relievers — are being pushed too hard in October.
“We have got to stop burning up our beautiful young arms by pitching them in a way, in a manner, that we would never do during the (regular) season,” Boras said on Wednesday.
In the past 10 years, the average fastball speed has increased from 93.3 mph to 95.5 mph in the 2024 regular season. At the same time, injury rates have soared, with 484 pitchers landing on the injured list this year, nearly double the number in 2014.
Even though general managers have different opinions on bullpen usage, the rise in injuries is another reason why finding consistent relievers is so hard.
Using valuable young pitchers in the bullpen is risky, but going after veteran relievers in free agency is also a gamble. Take Treinen, a 36-year-old pitcher whose career shows the ups and downs of being a reliever.
He was an All-Star in 2018 with the Oakland Athletics, posting a tiny 0.78 ERA and 100 strikeouts in 80 1/3 innings. But the next year, his performance dropped with a 4.91 ERA.
The Dodgers thought he could bounce back in 2020, and they were right. He had a solid season and helped Los Angeles win the World Series. Because of that, the Dodgers signed him to a two-year deal. He was great again in 2021 but suffered a major shoulder injury that caused him to miss almost all of the 2022 season.
He signed an extension but missed the entire 2023 season due to the same shoulder injury. He finally returned in 2024 and bounced back with a 1.93 ERA and another championship.
Now Treinen is back on the free-agent market. “You can look at it multiple ways,” said Perry Minasian, speaking generally and not specifically about Treinen. “You might say: ‘Wow, he’s taken the ball a ton.
He’s been used drastically over the last three, four years, so I’m not sure what it’s going to look like going forward,’ or it could be: ‘Hey, he’s held up. He pitches. He’s been consistent and takes the ball.’”
The Houston Astros have had a strong bullpen in recent years with pitchers like Hector Neris and Ryan Pressly. General manager Dana Brown said there’s always unpredictability in the bullpen, but it’s not all because of injuries.
“It’s just the game today,” Brown said. “You have all this information, and sometimes the hitters, they study you. The film — they look at it. They find your weak spots and try to exploit you.”
Brown said one quality he values in relievers is humility, understanding that they might have to change their approach on the mound as they go through a long career.
“The guys who don’t have a teachable spirit, or the aptitude, they sometimes get lost in the sauce,” Brown said.
