How good is Taylor Rogers?

The San Diego Padres closer has been lights out this year. What's the cause and how does it compare to former Padres closers?

First, I want to take a second to thank everyone who reached out about yesterday’s post. I know it was a bit different from what you’re used to, but I got tons of response and all of it was positive. Thank you for letting me speak my mind on non-Padres things from time to time. You guys rock.

Okay, now, let’s get into some Padres stuff.

Today’s question that we’re trying to solve is “How good is Taylor Rogers?” This is a nearly impossible thing for a Padres fan to tackle because he has been almost literally perfect since arriving in San Diego, and there’s no actual way that he’s going to continue being perfect forever. Consider this something of a level-set so that we can all have something like appropriate expectations for Rogers going forward.

Taylor vs. Taylor

The most obvious place to start is by pointing out that what Rogers is doing now is abnormal for him.

This is Rogers’ 7th MLB season, all of the previous ones spent with the Minnesota Twins, and the numbers he’s putting up now blow away any other season he’s had.

The best season he’s had before 2022 was the only other full season when he was used as a closer, so that’s a good sign. In 2019, he posted a 2.61 ERA and 30 saves over 60 appearances. Right now, he has a 0.47 ERA and 16 saves in 19 appearances.

But this isn’t my way of saying that Rogers is bad or lucky. Quite the opposite. Taylor Rogers is really good and has been for a long time and it’s kind of amazing that the Twins were willing to trade him away or take him out of the closer’s role.

I want to quote FIP as a stat for a second. For those unaware, FIP stands for Fielding Independent Pitching. The thought is that the pitcher can’t control the fielding behind him, so FIP is suppose to show you how the pitcher is performing while taking out any reliance on the fielding happening behind him.

It’s a pretty basic formula that tries to boil pitching down to walks, strikeouts and home runs. In 2022, it’s a pretty effective way of evaluating pitchers while taking luck out of it.

In general, you want a pitcher with a low ERA and a low FIP. If the pitcher has a high ERA and low FIP, it usually means he’s been unlucky with the fielding behind him. You can think of FIP as being pretty similar to ERA in terms of numbers, though. Below 4 is pretty good, above 5 is pretty bad.

Here’s Rogers’ FIP for every season since he made it to MLB:

• 3.57

• 4.09

• 2.33

• 2.85

• 2.84

• 2.13

• 1.85

Those are in order, too. The 1.85 is this season, but it is really not far from the FIPs in the 2 range that he has been putting up since his third year with the Twins. He has been, and continues to be, a great pitcher. Just one that was under the radar a bit before joining the Padres.