Discussion- Best Bullpen Ever.
 

While Mariano and anyone may be favored, I like the 2002 Braves. So good and so deep- SEVEN solid performers:

John Smoltz, R--3W-2L; 55 saves-75 games; 80.1 Innings; 3.25ERA
Chris Hammond, L--7W-2L; 63 games; 76 Innings; 0.95ERA
Mike Remlinger, L--7W-3L; 73 games; 68 Innings; 1.99ERA
Darren Holmes, R--2W-2L; 55 games; 54.2 Innings; 1.81ERA
Kevin Gryboski, R--2W-1L; 57 games; 51.2 Innings; 3.38ERA
Kerry Ligtenberg, R--3W-4L; 52 games; 66.2 Innings; 2.97ERA
Tim Spooneybarger, R--1W-0L; 51 games; 51.1 Innings; 2.63ERA

Collective Stats (of these seven): 24W-14L; 448.2 Innings; 2.41ERA

Team won 101 regular season games...eliminated by Giants in first round.

Heck, we accomplished that this year without a good bullpen...oh, well...

Hard to argue with those numbers. I need to do some digging on BR, but I wouldn't be surprised if that's better than the Mariano prime year teams. I suppose one counter-argument is that Mariano's 0.70 playoff ERA with 141 innings pitched (100 more than the number 2 guy, if Google is to be believed) is so good that Mariano plus any group of warm bodies is the best ever.

One of the early 2000s Astros teams had Brad Lidge and Octavio Dotel with strong years as well as Wagner.

The 2010 Giants team with Brian Wilson, Sergio Romo and Santiago Casilla was really good when the game got late.

Sergio had that sweet slider that nobody could hit.

...........
 

1990 Reds won the World Series and bullpen allowed only 1 earned run in 24 innings in October when it counted!

1998 Yankees were pretty damn good too! ugh

:cool:

The 03 Dodgers pen is right up there:

https://i.postimg.cc/s246LtYz/Screen...g-Internet.jpg

I think these are the only two choices in my mind, I give the 98' Yankees just a smidge of the edge to slide into first. Moving Rivera to relief was a move and a half.

The '03 Dodgers are hard to top.

'90 Athletics were really good too. Eckersley had a .61 ERA on the year (ERA+ over 600) and the lowest ERA+ in their bullpen was 124.

But the Reds definitely outpitched the A's in the World Series on their way to a sweep.

Here are the 90' Athletics compared to the '98 Yankees.

If we're talking best regular season bullpen, the Yankees have had much better pens than the '98 one during the last 25 years or so. Might have been years they didn't win a WS or win 114 games, but they've had better pens.

Granted, from what I remember, the times Ramiro Mendoza came out of the pen instead of starting, would make the bullpen look much more impressive on raw numbers. Graeme Lloyd was very effective, but only pitched to 1 or 2 guys per appearance.

Just pick one of David Robertson's better seasons when he is matched up with Mariano, and that pen was likely better then the '98 one.

I loved Ramiro Mendoza. He’s the perfect example of a guy you had to see play. His stats won’t jump out at you but if you watched him play you know he was a big part of those teams.

'The Nasty Boy': Myers, Dibble & Charlton.

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To me the best bull pens were the ones rarely used.

I liked when Pitchers went the distance sometimes even into extra innings.

Scary/Depressing that the most complete games by a pitcher since 2000 was 11 by James Shields in 2011

Nasty Boys were awesome.

So were Herrera, Davis and Holland for the 2014-15 Royals. In 2014 their combined ERA was 1.25, and if I remember correctly, KC only lost one game all year when they were leading after 6. The trio combined to pitch over 200 innings and gave up only 3 homeruns (all by Holland).

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2011 sticks out.

Mariano Rivera W-L 1-2, 44 Saves, 1.91 ERA, 226 ERA+, 2.9 WAR
David Robertson W-L 4-0, 1 Save, 1.08 ERA, 399 ERA+, 3.7 WAR
Luis Ayala W-L 2-2, 2.09 ERA, 233 ERA+, 1.3 WAR
Boone Logan W-L 5-3, 3.46 ERA, 125 ERA+, 0.4 WAR
Cory Wade W-L 6-1, 2.04 ERA, 212 ERA+, 1.3 WAR
Rafael Soriano W-L 2-3, 2 Saves, 4.12 ERA, 105 ERA+, 0.4 WAR
Joba Chamberlain W-L 2-0, 2.83 ERA, 154 ERA+ , 0.7 WAR

Yeah, that's probably the 1st one that came to mind for me to. ;)

Maybe not the best ever...but pretty damn good.

Also....Cory Wade? His career is a tiny micro-cosm of how inconsistent relievers can be from year to year.

Two really good years, two really bad years.....and a minor league career that was very similar...probably bordering more on the "bad" side of things overall.