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In the steroid era, it was all about offense. Mainly power. Thats what the best teams did. Well in most cases, obviously not all. But that was the trend.

Then when all the steroid scandals hit TV, we saw a resurgence in pitching. The MLB was again full of dominant starters. Thats what winning teams went after. Not in all cases but most. That was the road to success.

Now though. Since watching underwhelming teams like Baltimore last season and even Kansas who made it to the World Series. Teams started to see how they succeeded. The answer was, DOMINANT bullpens. Thats what teams are building now. Most top teams have atleast 2 dominant back end guys.

Kansas which has improved alot with their world series experience does this superbly. Their game plan is, make it past the 6th inning and the rest is automatic. They dominant.

Is the Bullpen the new MLB era now?

Giants have won all there recent championship's on the back of Pitching and Defense.

I still think in the regular season you need strong starting pitching. In the playoffs though bullpens seem to matter more since you're not really worried about managing over the course of a season, every game basically is the season. Games are also so close so if you have even like a 2-1 lead going into the 7th, if you have a lockdown bullpen you just win the game.

I think they're important but I don't like terming them as a "new" road to success. The good teams that have won in recent history and 20 years ago, for the most part, were good in all phases of the game even if they had an offense full of power.

Also, keep in mind that the 88 Dodgers and 90 Reds were supposed to have NO SHOT against the roided up Bash Brothers.
Pitching it and catching it has always won….and it always will.

Yeah there is no clear cut path. We've seen lots of different types of teams win. I think the goal is to just be good enough to get there, then hope the stars align and the balls bounce your way and you can go on a run.

I'd say so for the playoffs.

My Mets are having a pretty good season, mainly b/c of their starting pitchers. But come playoff time, I don't see us doing much with this bullpen.

But like others have said, you can win in different ways. You don't have to follow the trend. Diamondbacks beat the Yanks in 2001 during the "Steroid Era", but they wouldn't have if they didn't have pitching beasts like Big Unit and Schilling.

I still think great starting pitching, defense, getting on base a lot and clutch hitting are the most important things to be successful.

Great starting pitching can often make a team's bullpen look a lot better, especially when you have an ace that can pitch 220+ innings a year.

Stannis wrote:I'd say so for the playoffs.

My Mets are having a pretty good season, mainly b/c of their starting pitchers. But come playoff time, I don't see us doing much with this bullpen.

But like others have said, you can win in different ways. You don't have to follow the trend. Diamondbacks beat the Yanks in 2001 during the "Steroid Era", but they wouldn't have if they didn't have pitching beasts like Big Unit and Schilling.

Well you were somewhat right in the end it was the bullpen that fell, however what a run!

I wouldn't call any aspect of the game the road to success. If there is a road to success it is pitching, though. I don't believe it is bullpen's specifically, but pitching is most important. We see it with the D-Backs, spending big bucks on Greinke and making the big trade for Miller. There is no clear cut road to success, but pitching is most important

I have to say the OP is spot on.

The bullpen has been a MAJOR problem so far this year for the dodgers.

The 2008 mets had a nifty team. They acquired Johan Santana, who had a Cy Young level year and they had a bunch of hitters including Wright, Reyes, Beltran, Delgado, good enough for 2nd in the NL in runs that year, but the Pen was awful, blowing 29 saves that year and that was enough to bump the Mets out of first into 2nd.

A bad bullpen can really hurt a team, but looking at how much top relief pitchers got teams back in trade this year, I think GMs and many fans are overrating the bullpen. A bullpen is great, but you can't judge a need based off one year of playoffs and that seems to be what many are doing.