Best Relief Tandems
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by user Willf123
Rivera to Wetteland. In 1996 this was arguably the most dominating duo of setupman to closer combination in baseball. Wetteland saved 43 games and Rivera had a miniscule 2.09 ERA for 107 2/3 innings that year. Basically, if the Yankees got to the 8th inning with the lead the game was over. So far this season Hideki Okajima and Jonathan Papelbon have been in my estimation the best duo in baseball and the biggest reason why the Sox have a 9 ½ game lead over the NYY in the AL East. I decided to check on other setup/closer tandems to get an idea of who the best might be. The criteria I used was the closer had to have at least 43 saves and his primary setup man had to have at least 100 innings pitched and 61 appearances.
Year Tandem SV IP ERA
98 Beck/Mulholland 54 192.3 2.95
96 Brantley/Shaw 48 175.7 2.46
96 Wetteland/Rivera 45 171.4 2.36
99 Hernandez/White 43 181.3 3.67
07 Papelbon/Oki 13 35 0.77
'
Other Notable Seasons- Just under requirements
01 Rivera/Mendoza 56 181.4 3.13
99 Rivera/Mendoza 48 192.7 3.41
93 Myers/Bautista 55 187 2.94
86 Righetti/Shirley 49 212 3.73
88 Eck/Nelson 48 184.4 2.78
83 Quiz/Armstrong 48 241.7 2.76
84 Sutter/Allen 48 241.7 2.53
89 Davis/Harris 50 227.7 2.29
The best tandem of at least the last 10 years was Gagne and Mota in 2003. The innings pitched numbers are relatively the same except for the time in the early 1980’s. Look at those innings pitched!
