Arden Zwelling

that role honestly ultimately like they're a Jimmy Garcia short in the bullpen and Garcia is going to start a rehab assignment this week again with the Dunnean Blue Jays and we'll see how that goes but ultimately like they are just a leverage arm short right now

Uh, like if Yariel Rodriguez had like carried over some of what he'd been doing in Buffalo and shown up and been really good in leverage, that would have been helpful.

That hasn't happened.

Uh, they haven't had any other like success stories in terms of leverage relief emerge from the minor leagues.

If we were talking about like a Connor Cook or a TJ Brock or like any of these dudes that like we'd been talking about in recent years is like, Oh, maybe there's high upside stuff.

There's leverage stuff here.

Okay.

Um,

But that hasn't happened.

So ultimately right now, like it's just an unideal composition towards the back end of the bullpen.

And John Schneider, Pete Walker just have to manage their way through this.

But look, if we had this conversation prior to Saturday, was it when the blow up happened?

Yeah.

If we had this conversation on Friday, we'd be talking about like, wow, Jeff Hoffman like hasn't allowed a run in his last six, hasn't walked a batter in his last six and has struck out like over half the dudes he's faced.

holy crap he's figured this out he's thrown a slider all the time and it's performing as well if not better than it did when he was with the Phillies and an all-star like this is just how much these things can change and oscillate with relievers it's the most volatile position in baseball and Jeff Hoffman's been one of the most volatile at a volatile position

He's just got to pitch less is the other thing.

Yeah, I'm not like forcing him into more right now.

I'm trying to find ways to get him a breather because he leads the league in appearances.

And by the way, Braden Fisher is second and not far behind them are Varland and Hoffman and Rogers is up there as well.

like these are guys who like rogers you kind of put aside because he's so different and unique right like he can sustain workloads that other guys can't but when you talk about fluority fisher hoffman varland these are all guys who set career highs in workload just last year and now they're on pace to surpass that like they're all on pace to be mid 70s even high 70s appearances