re: ATL Thread 7/21: Return of El Oso

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We have the 3rd best bullpen in our division. See how that works dickhead.

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You could make that case if you look at ERA and nothing else. Going by WAR, the Mets have the worst bullpen in baseball. The Braves' bullpen is 0.1 behind the Nationals' going by WAR. As stated already, the Braves' bullpen has the best FIP in baseball which does a better job of isolating pitching performance than ERA since it accounts for fielding differences between different teams. The Braves also have the best xFIP in the division (similar to FIP but replaces a pitcher's home run total with an estimate of how many home runs they could be expected to give up based on the league average home run-to-fly ball rate). The Braves bullpen is also second best in the division at forcing ground balls at 46.6%, with a GB% just 0.5% behind the Mets. You might think that such a high GB% means they aren't striking a lot of guys out, but the Braves' bullpen has the best K/9 in the division at 9.43. All of these numbers include Avilan who was terrible. The Braves' bullpen has also pitched the third fewest innings in the majors, so they can be expected to be relatively fresh down the stretch compared to other teams.

To summarize, if you look at nothing but ERA, then you could say that the Braves have the third best bullpen in the division. But digging a little deeper reveals that they are arguably the best bullpen in the division and can be expected to actually have a lower ERA during the remainder of the season than they have thus far.