best ever season for a reliever (i am bored)

post your emmanuel clase jokes here

that Gagne season led to him getting signed by the Brewers and posting up an ERA of like 60 so, not that one

Great idea! I might have included Willie Hernandez's famous '84 season--Cy/MVP, sub-2.00 ERA, 4.8 WAR, didn't blow a save till his last game of the year--but I know you could go on forever about this or that candidate. Since the nature of relief pitching has changed so much over the years, very hard to figure out how to weigh ERA/saves/WAR.

Having an ERA+ of over 800 is very cool, though.

I wasn’t sure how many options I could have and Willie was one of the 13 or so cuts I made to get it to a safe number

800 ERA+ what the everloving fuck

I know it makes everyone queasy, but Chapman must have been on your list of cuts (maybe even for 2025)...Kensley Jensen and Josh Hader too?

an earlier convo around chapman here was what inspired this! his 2025 and 2012 both got the chop tho. Jansen and Hader weren't even on the longer list!

full list of guys i left out: 1979 Jim Kern, 1982 Dan Quisenberry, 1984 Willie Hernández, 1990 Bobby Thigpen, 1990 Rob Dibble, 1996 Mariano Rivera, 2002 Octavio Dotel, 2004 Brad Lidge, 2011 David Robertson, 2012 Aroldis Chapman, 2014 Dellin Betances, 2014 Wade Davis, 2018 Edwin Díaz, 2019 Kirby Yates, 2022 Edwin Diaz & 2025 Chapman

800 ERA+ what the everloving fuck

ya, there's a few outrageous stats in there. the 800 ERA+ and also Clase's ERA & ERA+, Hiller's 7.9 WAR, Gossage's 8.2 WAR, Gagne's 137 strikeouts, Rodríguez's 62 saves, Uehara's 0.565 WHIP, Kimbrel's 0.78 FIP, Papelbon's 5 WAR in 68 IP...

A real simplification, and I don't know the exact beginning of each phase, but for me, the history of relievers is basically three eras: 1) the early bulk guys, Gossage and Marshall and McGraw and the rest: modest number of saves, a lot of innings and WAR, a lot of wins and losses; 2) the move to judging a reliever by saves, with the record forever moving up and up, all the way to K-Rod's 60+ in 2008; 3) the Chapman/Kimbrel/Jensen/Hader kind of reliever, with ungodly H/9 and K/9 rates.

accidentally clipped two lines...
Papelbon's 2006 WAR/9 was an epic 0.659 and F-Rod's 2008 WAR/9 was a measly 0.33

the best and the worst WAR/9 of the bunch

bulk guys

yeah it's not up there statistically but mike marshall's 1974 was amazing -- he appeared in 106 games and threw 208.1 innings!

oh i missed some names that were on my shortlist before the cull: 1964 & '74 Dick Radatz, '74 Mike Marshall and '77 Rich Gossage.

Marshall's full line from that season:
3.1 WAR, 2.42 ERA, 141 ERA+, 2.59 FIP, 1.186 WHIP, 21 saves, 15-12 W/L, 143 Ks 208.1 IP, WAR/9 of .134

it was a good season, but the only real phenomenal thing was his innings. i guess i should have left an "other" option in the poll tho

Marshall's best season was either '72 (with the Expos) or '79. One of the heroes of Ball Four, too--the anti-Joe Schultz.

Ball Four:

With Hovley gone, Mike Marshall is probably the most articulate guy on the club, so I asked him if he had as much trouble communicating as I've had and he said, "Of course. The minute I approach a coach or a manager I can see the terror in his eyes. Lights go on, bells start clanging. What's it going to be? What's this guy want from me? Why can't he be like everybody else and not bother me? It's almost impossible to carry on a conversation or get a direct answer to a direct question."

ha ha, yes. i remember that. he also has a supporting role in The Arm. great book.

It's so hard to compare the 70's and 80"s relievers who threw 100+ innings to the relievers of today. Besides the volume of work, they had completely different roles than the one inning closers we have now.

But it's interesting that if you judge them by WAR/9IP, the value of the best relievers hasn't changed all that much in 50 years. 0.5-0.6 was elite in the 70's and is still elite now.

Eric Gagne's 2003 CY-winning season turns out to be one of the lesser seasons on the list according to WAR/9IP! I guess that's due to park effects?

i honestly can't figure out why WAR didn't like Gagne more that year. his FIP was actually lower (0.86) than his very low era (1.20) along with one of the lowest WHIPs on the list. with well over 80 IP, you'd expect him to out-do Papelbon's 2006. park factor is the only explanation - but it seems to have dinged him to the tune of at lest a win and a half, which is wild.

i am still looking at this list finding myself incapable of choosing one

Too much thinking involved...tempted to just default to Rivera, but without a compelling argument I'll go with Hoffman in '98. (That sentence is a wish-fantasy for a Jays fan...) His ERA, WHIP, and everything else was stellar, he managed to do it at probably the apex of the PED era, the Padres were surprise division winners, and he saved 53/54.

i had my shortlist down to: Hiller, Papelbon and Britton