Home runs, blown saves, and a habit of breaking your heart: these are the things that defined the Reds’ bullpen in 2016. Not even a year later, what was a major detriment for the Reds in 2016 has turned out to be a major catalyst for them in 2017. Stale inconsistent veteran pitching has been replaced with youthful arms eager to make an impact.
In 2016 the Reds bullpen was bad…like historically bad. The pitching staff as a whole gave up 258 home runs (MLB record) with the bullpen alone accounting for 103 of them. The bullpen ranked dead last in all of baseball in earned runs, walks, saves, OBP, WHIP, home runs, and OPS.