Top 5 pitchers of all time?

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Posted By: Todd Schultz

Blyleven had good or better relievers most of the time. Did the pen blow 13 leads for him over the course of 20 years? No doubt, but that can be said for every starter. My point is this notion that Blyleven toiled for scrubby teams is not very accurate.

In Bert's first season in 1970, the Twins closer was Ron Perranoski--who won Fireman of the Year. He stayed another season and then the Twins got Wayne Granger, who also had won the award in 1970 (NL). In '73 they had Ken Sanders--he too had won the award two years prior, and in 1974-75, the Twins had Bill Soup Campbell, who would win Fireman of the Year the next two seasons. After a season in Texas, Bert pitched for a few years in front of Kent Tekulve, and when he rejoined the Twins, he got three years of Jeff Reardon. So other than a couple years with the Tribe (in one of which he won 19 games anyway, how much could the pen have cost him there?)and two with the mid 80's Twins, the closers were there for Bert. In sum, we are not looking at a guy who got robbed out of boatloads of wins because of lousy relievers; in fact, the pen may have saved more of those wins than those of other teams.