The softest-tossing pitcher still shines in an age of high-octane arms

In an era in which pitchers are trained to throw the hardest fastballs in the hunt for ever more strikeouts, despite the heightened risks of injury, we humbly present Ryan Yarbrough, a long reliever for the Los Angeles Dodgers.

He has the slowest average fastball in the game. Of the 149 pitchers with at least 45 innings pitched through Wednesday, Yarbrough’s average fastball — 86.5 mph, according to FanGraphs — ranked last.

“It’s kind of like Ping-Pong,” Yarbrough said recently, explaining his approach to pitching. “Something soft comes in and you’re mixing speeds, keeping them off balance and right in between. Any time you can keep guys uncomfortable and especially put them in bad counts, it makes it really fun.”

Going easy on the radar gun helps the left-handed Yarbrough go longer when he pitches. He is roughly on a pace to become the first pitcher in 18 years to work 100 innings out of the bullpen — with an asterisk.

Technically, Yarborough has done this before, as a rookie lab rat for the 2018 Tampa Bay Rays. That season, he was 16-6 with a 3.91 ERA in 147 1/3 innings — and although 118 2/3 of those innings were thrown in relief, it was mostly predetermined. Yarbrough was the primary “bulk guy” when the Rays pioneered the use of the opener.

“From the outside looking in, you’re like, ‘OK, he doesn’t have games started, but everything else was a starter basis,’” Yarbrough said. “I never really tried to focus on that too much because the end result was still there. If you look at the scoreboard going into the game, you’re just not starting. But I was coming in like the second or third inning really consistently.”

This season, for the first time in his seven-year career, Yarbrough has not started at all. And when the Dodgers reached the halfway point of their season this week, Yarbrough had worked 49 1/3 innings — just two outs short of a 100-inning pace. The last pure reliever (not a bulk guy after an opener, that is) to work 100 innings in a season was the New York Yankees’ Scott Proctor in 2006.

“I was shocked when you told me that,” said Proctor, who now works as a wealth adviser in Florida, specializing in professional athletes. “But I know the game has evolved to be more role-specific. Ballplayers are a commodity, they’re an investment, and teams are trying to protect their investments.”

The modern pitching assembly line does not churn out many models like Yarbrough, whose long-relief role would seem to be critical as starters trend toward shorter outings. Of Yarbrough’s 21 appearances through Thursday, 17 had lasted more than one inning.

“He’s been a linchpin for us,” manager Dave Roberts said. “There’s some other guys that we don’t use back-to-back, so to be able to have him take down two to four innings has been huge. That multi-inning role is an outlier these days. He’s a different guy, which is a nice change of pace.”

The typical reliever is a former starter who probably did not have enough quality pitches to fool hitters more than once in a game. But that pitcher’s fastball might play up in shorter bursts, and data can determine how his off-speed pitches might work against specific hitters.

“It’s evolved now to where there’s certain parts of the lineups that are best for you to face, which really limits your length of outings,” Yankees closer Clay Holmes said. “There’s way more matchups, and you don’t really have your starters handing it off to one or two guys to finish the game.”

Even if a team does have a designated long reliever, he can often pitch himself into a higher-leverage short role. The New York Mets’ Reed Garrett started this season in the minors and joined the team in early April, working more than one inning in six of his first eight appearances. At that point, Garrett had an 0.61 ERA while averaging nearly two strikeouts per inning. The Mets recognized what they had, and 17 of Garrett’s last 22 appearances have lasted one inning or less.

“It’d be cool to go 100 innings, and for a while, I felt like I was on pace for it,” Garrett said. “You’ve got to bring value somehow, and if a guy can go 100 innings out of the bullpen for the team, I think that brings value.”

An impediment to the 100-innings mark is minor league options. If a pitcher works three or more innings, he will probably need at least a day or two of rest. And if that pitcher can be sent down without having to clear waivers, the team can do it and summon a fresh arm.

Yarbrough, 32, is not in that category. He pitched well in relief last summer after a trade from Kansas City, then signed a one-year, $3.9 million contract to return to Los Angeles. He has delivered as the team expected, with the lowest strikeout rate on the active roster (4.4 per nine) but a stellar 3.28 ERA.

The 100-relief-innings mark seems plausible to Yarbrough, but to others, such as Holmes, it seems like a relic from the days of Goose Gossage, Kent Tekulve and Willie Hernandez.

“One hundred innings out of the bullpen seems crazy nowadays,” Holmes said. “That’s a lot, especially being able to repeat it year after year.”

Proctor did it just once, with 102 1/3 innings to help the Yankees win a division title in that 2006 season. He led the American League in appearances, with 83, and matched it the next season (while throwing 16 fewer innings) for the Yankees and Dodgers. Arm injuries plagued Proctor after that; in parts of three more seasons, he had a 6.59 ERA.

“I don’t look back anymore,” he said, when asked about the toll of the innings. “I will tell you what people don’t realize. Two years in a row with 83 games, OK, but there might have been another 20 games when I got up — or got up multiple times — but never pitched. And that workload is what adds on more.”

Yarbrough will not come close to 83 appearances this season, let alone all those extra times when he only warms up, which should help his longevity. He would love to reach 100 innings, he said, but his goal is much simpler: just help the high-powered bat missers around him.

“We have so many good arms,” Yarbrough said. “Whatever I can do to help fill that void, I’m all for it.”