Four horsemen…
Posted by Andy on June 22, 2009
...not of the apocalypse, but of the post-season.
Here are teams in the last 20 years to have 4 pitchers throw at least 200 innings:
Year Lg Team Number Players Matching +----+--+---------------------------------+------+-----------------------------------------+ 2006 AL Chicago White Sox 4 Jon Garland / Javier Vazquez / Freddy Garcia / Mark Buehrle 2005 AL Chicago White Sox 4 Freddy Garcia / Mark Buehrle / Jon Garland / Jose Contreras 2003 NL Chicago Cubs 4 Kerry Wood / Matt Clement / Carlos Zambrano / Mark Prior 2003 AL New York Yankees 4 Andy Pettitte / Roger Clemens / David Wells / Mike Mussina 2003 AL Seattle Mariners 4 Freddy Garcia / Jamie Moyer / Joel Pineiro / Ryan Franklin 1997 NL Atlanta Braves 4 John Smoltz / Denny Neagle / Tom Glavine / Greg Maddux 1993 NL Atlanta Braves 4 Tom Glavine / Greg Maddux / John Smoltz / Steve Avery 1993 NL Los Angeles Dodgers 4 Kevin Gross / Orel Hershiser / Tom Candiotti / Ramon Martinez 1991 NL Atlanta Braves 4 Charlie Leibrandt / John Smoltz / Steve Avery / Tom Glavine
These teams all made the playoffs, except for the 2006 White Sox (who still won 90 games), the 2003 Mariners (who won 93 and missed), and the 1993 Dodgers.
As you might imagine, this sort of thing used to be much more common, in particular when the 4-man rotation was still in use and bullpens had fewer members.
When you look at the list above, don't just consider the 4 guys you see listed. Behind these names were good bullpens made better because they were rested. The more innings the starts pitch, the fewer times each guy in the bullpen gets used and the more effective they can be.
June 22nd, 2009 at 10:56 am
Those Braves teams were notorious at the time for having questionable bullpens. They were probably perceived as worse than they really were because they tended to cycle through different closers and never really had a shut-down guy, except maybe Wohlers for a couple seasons.
The '03 Yanks pen was kind of a mess.