Bullpen Arms: Tough or Easy to Find?

To many it's thought that relievers are tough to find. Are they really tough to find? I've long thought that while it is tough to find a dominant reliever, finding a suitable, (around) average reliever is not difficult to do. I decided to put our 2098 numbers to the test.

2098 was around about an average bullpen season (FCM generally sits around 4.40 ERA for relievers). In determining who fits and to weed out any pitchers who were used sparingly, flipped back and forth to the rotation, etc... I decided on these parameters:

At least 40 IP and no more than 2 GS

Bullpen Types	Amount				G	IP	ER	Hits	HR	Ks	Walks		BF	AB	ERA	OBA
Average Arm	134				41	75.2	36	76	9	49	33		328	292	4.36	.260
Above Avg Arm	72				44	79.1	30	73	7	50	30		334	300	3.43	.244
Below Avg Arm	61				38	70.7	44	79	11	47	35		321	283	5.59	.280
Under 3.00 ERA	18				47	77.1	21	62	5	53	28		316	286	2.50	.217
Under 4.00 ERA	55				45	77.8	27	70	7	50	29		325	293	3.17	.238

I consider four true relief arms as needed (CL, SU, SR, SR). The LRP is probably almost always filled by a "6th" SP and the MRP is probably up for debate, but personally, I at least want 50s endurance pitcher for in case my LRP gets injured during the same and I'm not forced to start 20s endurance pitchers.

So, if we're just going to look at the above average ERA arms, we get 72 (or enough to fill 18 teams with better than average relievers). Considering that most rebuilding teams won't care if they have a good reliever, that fulfills most playoff contending teams. After that, you see what the below average relievers bring (or don't bring) to the table.

Then, I broke them down into two separate categories; Under 3.00 ERA and Under 4.00 ERA. To me, what you're gunning for is a solid sub-4.00 ERA reliever. That gets you a reliever that is assuredly above average and won't lose you games over and over. What you'd love is to have a sub-3.00 ERA reliever. Those are the guys that can dominate.

Under 3.00 ERA
With just 18 relievers who fit, there's not enough to go around for all 30 teams, but it's likely each playoff contender has one (if not two). The have the best OBA and HR/9 by a good margin and also have the best K/9 and BB/9, even if just by a slight margin.

Under 4.00 ERA
These do include the Under 3.00 ERA relievers, so there's 37 relievers who pitched between a 3.00 and 3.99 ERA. That's more than enough to have one per team and with the sub-3.00 ERA relievers, you nearly get enough to cover all 30 teams twice.


In the end, I think what this shows is that it truly is tough to find a top notch reliever (again, 18 relievers with a sub-3.00 ERA). However, it's not entirely difficult to find a solid reliever to fill your pen (54 other relievers with an above average bullpen ERA).