After a breakout season, can he sustain the momentum as he ages?
By the Numbers:
- Rating: 6.70
- 2024 Stats: 67 G, 66.1 IP, 3.26 ERA, 3.30 FIP, 129 ERA+, 1.0 bWAR, 0.9 fWAR
- Date of Birth: June 26, 1992
- 2024 Earnings: $1,350,000 (per Spotrac)
- 2025 Status: Agreed to arbitration contract of $3,070,000
Introduction
One of my favorite parts about baseball is the sheer amount of depth that is required to be successful. Not only does a team need nine players at a minimum in a lineup, but there has to be another entire lineup in the bullpen full of players capable of stepping up in a variety of situations. While the NBA or NFL are structured in a way that even just a single player or handful of players can make an entire team successful, baseball by its nature cannot operate that way. One of the best ways that teams can construct that depth is through savvy pickups and player development – and Ryan Thompson is a picture perfect example of that process. Originally drafted by the Astros back in 2014 in the 23rd round as a reliever, he failed to make much of an impression in the Houston system, finally reaching AAA at the tail end of his 25-year old season. Unfortunately, he missed the entirety of the 2018 season as he recovered from surgery and the Astros thus left him unprotected during the 2018 Rule 5 draft where he was subsequently picked up by the Rays.
Tampa Bay in turn slow rolled his buildup as he moved across high-A and AA in their system during the 2019 season before getting a non-roster invite to Spring Training 2020 – and then the world broke. He would eventually make his debut in the COVID-shortened season with decent results (4.44 ERA in 26.1 IP) and seemingly turned a corner in the next season by posting a 2.38 ERA in 34.0 IP while bouncing between AAA and the big league club. Despite that positive momentum, Thompson took a step back in 2022 and had the bottom fall out through most of 2023, prompting the Rays to designate the righty for assignment and eventual release in August. That’s when the D-Backs came calling with a minor league contract that he aced so well, he was promoted to the big league club just a week later and showed exactly the kind of promise he had demonstrated earlier. Between the end of August and the conclusion of the season, Thompson accumulated 13 appearances and posted an absurd 0.69 ERA and 0.538 WHIP. That performance plus the relative thin depth in the bullpen made it an easy decision to include the sidewinder on the postseason roster where he continued to excel – including four consecutive scoreless outings in the World Series.
2024 Season
In his 2023 review for Thompson, Makakilo was generally pretty optimistic on Thompson’s role and projected performance for 2024 mostly as a setup man for other higher-leverage bullpen arms like Paul Sewald or Kevin Ginkel. That optimism ended up being well-placed as Thompson was the D-Backs’ second-most valuable reliever by bWAR, trailing only Justin Martinez’s 2.0 bWAR for the season. While he was obviously never going to maintain an ERA below one for an entire season, his actual stats and a FIP that matched it were extremely valuable in a bullpen that struggled to find much consistency throughout the season. Through the end of July, Thompson had fully established himself as one of the most consistent hurlers in the Arizona bullpen with a 1.81 ERA – albeit with a worryingly high gap between that number and his 3.50 FIP.
Frustratingly, that gap narrowed in the worst way as he struggled down the stretch, posting ERAs north of 6 in both August and September/October – which were crucial periods for the ultimate collapse of the team’s postseason hopes. In fairness, some of those numbers are inflated by some isolated clunkers like a 0.2 IP, 3 ER game against his former team in the middle of August and a 0.2 IP, 4 ER nightmare against the Giants to open September. If you remove those untimely incidents, he had a 2.89 ERA for September and a 2.31 FIP for August so he may have been the victim of some poor luck as well. And, like many relievers, he is prone to swings in performance because of the inherently small sample sizes that dominate bullpen performances.
2025 Outlook
As it stands, Thompson has earned some slack from Mike Hazen and the front office. He has done well to solidify himself as a reliable setup man to higher leverage arms by pitching effectively in the later innings. The majority of his appearances this season were in the seventh and eighth in a wide range of leverage situations and he did particularly well in both medium and low leverage, but held his own in high leverage situations as well. However, I find his wobbles late in the season somewhat concerning and there are some reasons to be somewhat pessimistic heading into 2025 for the veteran. First, while his topline numbers were pretty good, Statcast sees more of a discrepancy as his expected ERA is sitting nearly a run above the actual number at 4.00. Some of that is definitely explained by the jump in hard hit rate he saw between 2023 and 2024 when it jumped from 34.1 to 44.6 while his ERA dropped by half a run. That change can also be somewhat concerning for a groundball pitcher like Thompson as hard hit grounders are more likely to find holes in the defense than softer hit ones (duh). I am also concerned by the twin facts that Thompson’s late-career resurgence is still based on a relatively small sample size (79.1 IP) and that he his entering his age-33 season. There is always high variability year-over-year in relievers and that variability tends to get higher as they age. Still, if he can improve his slider results and maintain his groundball pitcher status, it’s entirely possible that his performance will age relatively well. Both Steamer and Fangraphs see him mostly recreating his volume next year while seeing his topline numbers decrease somewhat – all perfectly fine if he is moved into lower-leverage situations. If he beats those projections however, watch out as he could continue to prove the doubters – myself included – wrong on many levels.