Now that the season is coming to an end and the playoff picture is becoming clearer, attention turns to what teams have a chance to make a serious run at a World Series title. Come playoff time games are often won or lost in the late innings which means the games often come down to a battle of bullpens. Therefore, when evaluating what teams will be successful in the playoffs, a good place to start is to look at the best bullpens in baseball.
These numbers are through Sunday’s Games.
By the Numbers: Best Bullpens in Baseball
Team ERA
Often times when evaluating the value of a portion of a pitching staff the most commonly used metric is ERA. The top 10 bullpens in terms of ERA are as follows:
| Team | ERA |
| Mariners | 2.46 |
| Padres | 2.68 |
| Athletics | 2.90 |
| Nationals | 2.92 |
| Giants | 3.00 |
| Orioles | 3.14 |
| Indians | 3.18 |
| Braves | 3.21 |
| Pirates | 3.23 |
As it can be seen, according to ERA, the Mariners have had the best bullpen in baseball. The entire Mariners truly have been dominant and are a big reason as to why the Mariners are still in the hunt for the final Wild Card spot. This top-ten list includes five teams — Athletics, Nationals, Giants, Orioles, and Pirates — who would all be in the playoffs if the season were to end today. On the other hand, the Tigers bullpen has been the worst among the current playoff teams in terms of bullpen ERA, ranking 4th from last in all of MLB in bullpen ERA. ERA though especially for bullpen pitchers does not tell the full story as it does not include all runners they have inherited and allowed to score, or prevented from scoring.
Fielding Independent Pitching
A different evaluation of pitchers is FIP. FIP, or fielding independent pitching, looks at pitchers based off of three basic results; strikeouts, walks, and home runs. It takes the three results that the pitcher can control that does not require the help of his fielders. It’s a good indication of the bullpens that do not beat themselves up due to walks and home runs allowed.
| Team | FIP |
| Nationals | 3.04 |
| Padres | 3.13 |
| Mariners | 3.15 |
| Braves | 3.16 |
| Marlins | 3.20 |
| Royals | 3.37 |
| Phillies | 3.39 |
| Cubs | 3.39 |
| Giants | 3.40 |
This top ten is different from the ERA top-10 with the Nationals bullpen as the best according the FIP and the the Mariners dropping from first to third. This list includes 3 playoff teams; the Nationals and Giants making repeat appearances and the Royals making their way into the top 10. On the opposite end of the spectrum the Tigers and Pirates find themselves in the bottom ten according to FIP. The Tigers find themselves in third to last while the Pirates come in as the tenth worst bullpen in baseball according to FIP.
Expected Run Value
However, a different way of evaluating bullpens is by looking at a stat called RE24. This stat assigns expected run values to each given situation of base runners and outs and then gives positive or negative value to how a players performs in the given situations. This link help explains the stat better. In order to determine the bullpen that has performed the best in situational pitching, I took the RE24 stat and switched it to an ERA scale. In order to do that you take the number of innings pitched and multiply it by .46 which is the expected number of runs per inning. This gives an expected run total. Then you subtract the RE24 from this expected run total. Then you treat this like earned runs and multiply by nine and divide by innings pitched.
| Team | TruERA |
| Mariners | 2.69 |
| Orioles | 2.92 |
| Athletics | 3.15 |
| Padres | 3.15 |
| Giants | 3.27 |
| Red Sox | 3.39 |
| Nationals | 3.43 |
| Indians | 3.45 |
| Angels | 3.54 |
Looking at this top 10, the Mariners once again come to the top of the leader board with the Orioles coming up to second (their highest place among all of the rankings). This leader board shows the teams who have performed best in situational pitching which is extremely important come playoff time. Once again looking the bottom of the leader board the Tigers make an appearance and the Dodgers also find themselves in the bottom 10. This is the best way to evaluate bullpens because unlike ERA and FIP RE24 penalizes the pitcher for allowing an inherited runner to score, while also rewarding a pitcher for holding said runner.
Using this information to evaluate the playoffs the Nationals and the Giants are the only current playoff teams that have appeared on all three lists. Those two teams are poised to be successful in close games late which means they have a great chance of making a run at the World Series final. The Tigers however have a lot to be concerned with as their bullpen woes will come back to bite them and could end their World Series hopes early this October.
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