The Bullpen: a HUGE Piece of the Puzzle

The bullpen has been the missing piece of the puzzle. Thanks to the emergence of JP Howell and Grant Balfour, as well as the sustained good pitching by Dan Wheeler and Chad Bradford, our bullpen has been one of the best of the MLB.

The Rays bullpen has had the biggest decrease in ERA from one year to the next of any team in 85 years. That's right 85 YEARS.  In my opinion, there are so many stars in this bullpen and we got most of them for nothing. Let's take a look at the pickups. We got JP Howell in 2006 from the Royals for Joey Gathright. Let's Compare.

This Season:

Joey Gathright

103 games .254 average 21 Stolen Bases 0 HOME RUNS

JP Howell

89.3 innings pitched  (6-1) record 2.22 ERA

Who's better?

JP has emerged as a force and will be great for years to come.

Grant Balfour was acquired for Seth McClung last year.

Seth McClung

101 IP (5-6) 4.17 ERA

Grant Balfour

57 IP  (6-2) 4 SV 1.42 ERA

Grant has improved by so much this season it is unbelievable. I would name him as the postseason closer based on the job he has done with us.

We acquired Chad Bradford for a player to be named later. Who ever the player is, we got a HUGE steal. He is very dominant and is one of the best groundball pitchers in the league.

Let's look at the others:

Trever Miller:

Free Agent acquired last offseason.

Jason Hammel:

Home Grown

Troy Percival:

Free Agent last offseason

Dan Wheeler:

Trade from the Houston Astros for Ty Wigginton. We definately got the better end of the deal there.

David Price:

Home Grown

If you look at how we acquired our bullpen, we did not give up much for any of the pitchers. It is great to see them  succeed like no one thought they would.