=== SABRMatt===
... raises a fun point:
I must admit, our top 6 in the bullpen now looks SCARY good assuming Fields or Hill lights the mound on fire in ST (and I think one of them will).
Here's your three closers and the guy who is nominally the closer (LOL) bullpen plus two good rubber-armed middle relievers plus lots of interchangeable parts style world-beating bullpen.
The 2001 Mariners' bullpen would be jealous of this one.
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=== Style Points, Dept. ===
Jeff Nelson is the ONE guy I think of, over the last 25 years, who was most painful for righties to face one time late in the ballgame. They coined the phrase Nintendo Slider after Jeff Nelson.
Arthur Rhodes was pretty much the same thing from the left side -- 95-97 mph and a Steve Carlton slider...
Sasaki was not up to them, but still a 10K closer...
I remember checking the K and WHIP leaders and routinely seeing those 3 guys in the top 5, if not actually 1-2-3. And as templates they were absolutely classic.
I wonder when the last time was, that a bullpen was as picture-perfect stylish as the 2001 pen was? Can anybody think of another bullpen that had a RH killer, a LH killer and a closer who were more in-your-face than those three?
The Eckersley A's sort of had the same pick-your-poison thing in some years... Shandler still refers to 300 BPV's as "Vintage Eck Territory" in honor of Eck's 73:4 type control ratios. The A's always had a couple of tough lefties in there, such as Honeycutt and ex-Mariner Matt Young, but never had anything remotely like Rhodes and Nellie...
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=== Stealth Bombers Dept. ===
League, if healthy, is a bona fide terminator and I fancy Kelley as a poor man's Jon Papelbon, 94 with pinpoint location.
When you have two freaks and they're backing up the two "name" relievers, you've really got something. I remember when the Angels had Rodriguez and Donnelly coming up behind guys who had more recognition...
For a while, the Yankees had Rivera in the non-closer spot and I still wake up in a cold sweat thinking about playing that team. That's nightmarish, when you have a superstar closer coming into the game early and you don't even get sympathy for facing an untouchable... :- )
We remember Armando Benitez coming up for the Orioles, fanning 100+ guys in 70 innings -- and he was behind Myers, Rhodes and Orosco.
That to me is a real fun bullpen template: two up-and-coming guys nobody knows about, who are the 2-3 or 3-4 options in your pen. That's what the 2010 M's are looking at, until Wok makes League the closer.
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=== Cuatro Amigos Dept. ===
Gillick used to cleave to a very specific 4-aces philosophy. He didn't need four Eckersleys, but he did want four guys at least as good as, say, Alan Mills. In 1996, Gillick had Myers, Arthur Rhodes and Alan Mills... plus the Mets' twin closers, McDowell and Orosco.
When he first got to Seattle, he explained why he likes four (4) reliable closer/setup men: "Lou needs more bullets to his gun out there. Now he can use Mesa and Rhodes one night, and use Sasaki and Paniagua the next night."
That specific roster principle has never gotten its due. Two fresh relief aces every night.
Back-to-back-to-back tight games for the division, four RP's put you in riding position on the mat. In that context, I'll take Aardsma, sure.
Cheers,
Dr D
The 4 Relief Aces idea is probably more recognized as the 6 inning game in Seattle, but the 4 Relief Aces itself is about maxing out the idea of the 6 inning game.
The Mariners haven't really had a 6 inning game bullpen since around 2003, which is incidentally when things started going down hill.
...we actually have 4 aces and at least 2 other reliable MRs most likely...which implies that we're likely to go something like 75-2 in games we lead after 6 innings.
After Lou had Sasaki, Rhodes, Nellie for a little while, then he started adding Ryan Franklin, Charlton in a bounceback year, etc.
The tough part is getting that guy you trust in the 8th inning with runners on... the supplementary pieces can usually be talented youngsters...
Gearin' up for a pennant race bro's...
That's a good way to put it.
The 2001 M's knew that if they had a lead in the middle innings, they would win, so were able to play for a run or two in certain spots...
With this offense, that's going to be more of a necessity than a luxury...
They also knew that they didn't have to actually have the lead in the middle innings to win. They were patient enough to knock most starters out by the fifth or sixth inning and then get an inning or two to take their shots at the soft white underbelly of most teams. The "two outs, so what" thing was mostly built on the fifth and sixth innings when they were facing a tired starter or the other team's fourth best reliever.
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