Pittsburgh Pirates: How Does Their Bullpen Match Up with That of NL Contenders?

Joel Hanrahan and Jason Grilli have played big parts in the success of the Pittsburgh Pirates this year.

If we get to the final month of the year and have a close race, it might just be the bullpens that decide  the playoff positions and the winner of the NL pennant. So it is appropriate to take a look at the bullpens of some of the NL contenders and see how they compare.

I used the following two relief pitchers for each team in the comparison.

Team	Pitcher	Pitcher
Dodgers	Jansen	Lindblom
Reds	Chapman	Marshall
Nationals	Clippard	Burnett
Giants	Romo	Casilla
Pirates	Hanrahan	Grilli

We can immediately see that this analysis is not perfect, for several reasons. First, these tandems might not actually be in place during the stretch drive. Pitchers moving onto or off of the disabled list can certainly be expected. Second, if a team has a strong, third member of the bullpen, the analysis would miss this.

Nevertheless, the following table does give us some sense of the relative strengths of the bullpens. 

Team	ERA	WHIP	K/9	Wins	Holds	Saves	Ranking Points
Reds	2.54	1.02	14.42	6	18	24	22
Pirates	2.15	1.09	10.88	5	23	27	20
Giants	1.90	1.07	9.62	5	17	28	17
Dodgers	2.58	1.00	10.61	5	21	16	17
Nationals	2.54	1.04	10.30	3	29	17	14

So the Pirates do stack up well against the other NL contenders. But unfortunately, the best bullpen seems to be the Reds, in their own division.

As the season progresses, keep an eye on the performance of the bullpens for a clue on who is on the inside track to win the NL pennant.

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