November 13, 2000

Team of The Decade

The Bullpen

by Dave Pease and Greg Spira

Previous articles in this series:

• Rotation of the Decade
• MVP of the Decade
• Outfield of the Decade
• Infield of the Decade

Fittingly, we end our yearlong Team of The Decade extended coverage with your choices for the bullpen.

Winning more than double the points of the second place finisher, the Reliever of the Decade is none other than Dennis Eckersley. The Eck was just hitting his prime in his second career as a reliever at the turn of the decade, and his 1990 season was legendary.

In second place is the dominant reliever in the league through the last half of the decade, Trevor Hoffman. By 1996, when Eckersley was winding down his career, Hoffman was blowing opposing batters away in San Diego.

Rounding out the bullpen are John Wetteland, John Franco, Jeff Montgomery, and Randy Myers.

(Please note: a floor of 300 appearances was used to determine eligibility for this award, which made some pitchers ineligible. If you're wondering where Mariano Rivera is, that's your answer.)

Thanks for sticking with us while we lost the data from this contest and found it all over again, and please mark your calendars and clear your schedules for November 2009, when we begin taking votes for the next Team of The Decade competition.

Pitcher                 P
Dennis Eckersley      401
Trevor Hoffman        191
John Wetteland        150
John Franco           146
Jeff Montgomery        53
Randy Myers            44
Rod Beck               39
Roberto Hernandez      38
Mike Jackson           36
Tom Henke              31
Robb Nen               27
Rick Aguilera          25
Lee Smith              24
Jesse Orosco           22
Doug Jones             12
Steve Reed             10
Jose Mesa               6
Mike Maddux             5
Mitch Williams          4
Mark Wohlers            4
Jeff Shaw               3
Duane Ward              3
Joe Boever              2
Mark Eichhorn           2
Xavier Hernandez        2
Graeme Lloyd            2
Gregg Olson             2
Jeff Parrett            2
Jeff Russell            2
Paul Assenmacher        1
Jeff Brantley           1
Greg Cadaret            1
Norm Charlton           1
Dennis Cook             1
Buddy Groom             1
Eddie Guardado          1
John Habyan             1
Mike Henneman           1
Darren Holmes           1
Rick Honeycutt          1
Kent Mercker            1
Mike Munoz              1
Mike Myers              1
Bob Patterson           1
Eric Plunk              1
Paul Quantrill          1
Scott Radinsky          1
Heathcliff Slocumb      1
Dave Veres              1
Bob Wickman             1
Todd Worrell            1
TOTAL                1310

Dave Pease is an author of Baseball Prospectus. Follow @davepease
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