I came across an interesting article on ESPN by Jayson Stark. I thought it was worth posting on the blog, so here it is.
Strike One -- Brave New Bullpen World Dept.
Rivera and Nelson … Percival and K-Rod … Dibble and Myers … Lidge and Wagner.
We present those names as evidence that we've seen our share of dominating bullpen tag teams through the years. But you know what we've never seen?
Domination like this:
Craig Kimbrel and Jonny Venters.
Three Strikes is here to make the case that we've never run across ANY bullpen tag team as unhittable and as untouchable as the Braves' two game-shrinkers have been so far in 2011.
Just eyeball their stat lines for a second and try to comprehend that this is happening in the major leagues, not on your PlayStation. It's amazing:
Insane as those numbers may look from afar, they only get more insane as you look closer. Here's what we mean:
• Want to guess how many bullpen teammates in the 42-year history of the modern save rule have had ERAs that low, with hit rates and strikeout rates that good, in the same season? That would be NONE -- not among relievers who worked at least 60 innings in a season, anyway. Unreal.
• But even if we zap hits and strikeouts right out of this equation and just look at ERAs, we can only find one set of teammates in modern bullpen history who have ERAs this low in the same year. That would be Dennis Eckersley (0.61) and Gene Nelson (1.57) of the 1990 A's. Just for the record, there were two other duos -- Eric Gagne (1.20) and Paul Quantrill (1.75) of the 2003 Dodgers and Joaquin Benoit (1.34) and Rafael Soriano (1.73) of the 2010 Rays -- that barely missed this cut. But that's it -- in the last four decades.
• If you've really paid attention, though, you know Kimbrel and Venters aren't the only occupants of that Braves bullpen with miniscule ERAs. There's a THIRD guy in that 'pen -- Mr. Eric O'Flaherty, ladies and gentlemen -- with a 1.27 ERA. That's "only" in 56 2/3 innings. But nevertheless, even if we lower the innings threshold to that level, there still has never been any modern bullpen that featured THREE relievers with ERAs that microscopic (and at least 55 innings pitched apiece). Ever.
• Hang on, though. There's more. Kimbrel last gave up a run on June 11. That was 30 2/3 consecutive shutout innings ago. Venters last allowed a run on June 29. That was 21 2/3 innings worth of donuts ago. So how often do you see two members of the same bullpen fire up that many consecutive zeroes? Just about never. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the only other bullpen teammates since 1969 to run off streaks like this at the same time were Joe Nathan (29 innings) and J.C. Romero (23) of the 2004 Twins. So there have never been any others in the National League -- at any stretch of any season -- since bullpen usage even remotely resembled the current bullpen usage. Whoa.
So is it safe to say nobody would want to find themselves trailing this team in the late innings when this October rolls around? Uh, just a little safer than throwing money into the stock market. Don't you think?
