What makes a reliever great?
So often, their career is a fleeting moment, so max effort and so limited in their repertoire that any loss of that margin that lets them dominate hitters effectively ends their career.
Sure, we all want Mariano Rivera with one unhittable pitch for two decades or whatever — that’s not normal, though. Typically you get a hard fastball and a sick breaker and go from there for a couple of seasons.
For eight years, that’s what Cleveland was granted by Cody Allen. Time and again he was called, and he usually succeeded.