Depth Charts 2022: RHP Relievers

We've reached the end!

Photo Credit: Samantha McCloskey | Richmond Flying Squirrels

This is the eleventh of a series of depth charts, taking a comprehensive look at each position across the entire SF Giants’ organization. So far, we’ve looked at:

• Catcher

• First Base

• Second Base

• Shortstop

• Third Base

• Corner Outfield

• Center Field

• LHP Starters

• LHP Relievers

• RHP Starters

We reach the end — finally — of this year’s depth charts series with the biggest monster of them all. The majority of major leaguers in any season these days are relief pitchers — and the majority of that majority are made up of guys who have up and down careers, hit the waiver wire with some repetition, and then move on to the next stop. Have arm, will travel.

I’ve noted on a few occasions that the Sacramento team last year hosted 97 different players. Of those, a total of 40 were pitchers who started fewer than three games (I could draw the line at the 29 pitchers who never started a game at all, but I’m not putting R.J. Dabovich into a “starter” category just because he acted as an opener on two nights.

Moving down one level, the Richmond bullpen on opening night of 2022 consisted of the following players: Dabovich, Solomon Bates, Bryan Brickhouse, Gray Fenter, Taylor Rashi, Blake Rivera, Frank Rubio, Pat Ruotolo, John Russell, Tyler Schimpf, Ryan Walker, and Chris Wright. SEVEN out of those 12 pitchers were released before the year was done, and all seven were right-handed relievers (an eighth was lost in the minor league portion of the Rule 5 draft). It’s a cruel business that churns through players, and this spot is the cruelest of them all.

Right-handed relievers truly are the spaghetti thrown against the wall of player development. They’re also the phylum that has most benefitted from the huge advances wrought by places like Driveline over the past decade — amping up velo and perfecting pitch shapes. Driveline founder Kyle Boddy has said that when pro teams first started reaching out to him, the challenge they set out was for Boddy to turn “non-prospect” pitchers into major leaguers. And in many cases, the data-driven techniques piloted by Driveline, and other new players on the scene, did just that.

What does all of this mean for our purposes today? Well, a couple of things. First, the sheer volume of players that fit in this post prevents me from being as exhaustive as I’ve been for the other positions. I’ll try to include all the names we have currently, but I’m not actually going into detail on each and every one of these guys. Even my ability to spit out thousands of words has its exhaustion point.

Secondly, and more importantly, this is the place where being wrong is an utter certainty. Guys in my 35 group will end up with careers. Guys I don’t include even at that level (and I’m spreading the 35s like peanut butter over this group to begin with!) will see the majors. Heck even that group of Squirrels who were released last year still have dreams to chase. Being a minor leaguer on the cut line isn’t the end of that.

Three years ago, in June of 2019, the Giants released Conner Overton off of the Richmond roster. Four years before that, he’d been released by the Marlins off of their A ball roster. Overton, the former Richmond reliever, has appeared for three different major league clubs in the last two years, starting seven games for the Pirates and Reds. Another long-time Giants’ farmhand, Tyler Cyr, finally made his big league debut last year with the Phillies.

No, releases aren’t the end for these guys — they just look for another wall to throw themselves against. And so, firm in the knowledge that I will completely overlook someone here today who goes on to don a major league uni on a future one, let us sally forth….