The Astros bullpen is 2nd in the majors in ERA. They had done it by identifying promising pitchers off of the scrap heap and developing them into effective pitchers.
Good thoughts, thank you for sharing! As it relates to bullpen volatility, seemingly any team will have its share of reclamation hits (as you noted above), and misses (e.g. Montero or Scott). Maybe, the best organizations build a sustainably higher ratio of relievers that succeed more than one year? In other words, while it's unlikely that reclamation projects like Okert, Ort, King etc... all remain good for years, a team with a competitive advantage in pitching instruction will cause a higher percentage of those relievers to remain competitive for a longer period of time.
Good thoughts, thank you for sharing! As it relates to bullpen volatility, seemingly any team will have its share of reclamation hits (as you noted above), and misses (e.g. Montero or Scott). Maybe, the best organizations build a sustainably higher ratio of relievers that succeed more than one year? In other words, while it's unlikely that reclamation projects like Okert, Ort, King etc... all remain good for years, a team with a competitive advantage in pitching instruction will cause a higher percentage of those relievers to remain competitive for a longer period of time.
Is the Astros defense helping them out, too? I have the impression that our defense has been pretty good this year…
Yes. I'm going to write in that later this week.