Your Surprise RP Performance Stories?

[DawnBTVS]

Anybody sign a RP or draft one and have them pull of a year you were not expecting? Maybe they played way over their heads for one season?

Been playing a few years as the St. Louis Cardinals starting in 1986 and just completed the 1988 season. I played out every game and my pitchers sucked, not helped by a mediocre/underachieving defense.

3 players under a 4.20 ERA (1, RP Todd Worrell, came in at 4.18). My best SP was John Denny at 16-13 with a 3.56 ERA for the year in 230 IP.

So I'm like, "Blah. My team sucked and all these pitchers were awful... whoa, wait..."

Willie Hernandez. I traded minor leaguer LF Keith Hughes to the Yankees, where he'd give them 14 PA for the year, for him in November in part to shore up my relief group.

Willie had put up a very good 1.93 ERA in 23 games including a 46 K/14 BB rate in 46.2 IP so that's what attracted me to him.

1988 Season: 2-0 with 1 S. 0.84 ERA(!!) in 64.0 IP with 56 K/21 BB and just 6 ER allowed all season. His BABIP was .232 and ERA+ was a mind boggling 467. Opponents ended up hitting .188/.264/.254 against him with LHB going a putrid .164/.269/.194(!) in 78 PA.

July-October he put up an ERA of 0.51 in 35 IP.

[Fyrestorm3]

I had a good one. In the midst of a pennant race in September, this middling prospect had made the team for September Call-Ups. Our starter was chased early one night, we trailed 5-0 in the 3rd, so I put the kid in to eat some innings.

It was his second career appearance, and he proceeded to throw 4 no-hit innings, striking out 7, and allowed us to actually come back and win the (rather important, in the end) game.Two years later, he was my all-star closer.

[JackD]

I always like when I trade for a young power pitcher who is struggling with their third pitch or control, and turning them into a reliever. Did this with Michael Kopech and he ended up being an absolutely dominant reliever. I think he had something ridiculous like 130 k's in 70 innings.

[NoOne]

in last year's ootp, i had a reliever that totally changed my perception of a 3-pitch reliever...

i stick with what i know works well, which is typically a highly rated, high velocity 2-pitch power pitcher with a pitch selection i like.

this guy was ~50's/80 and had an insane 5 year run with my team that was just wicked... only a closer for 2 years... i couldn't believe the results remain so good. borderline starter with a knucklecurve being the best pitch. 3rd pitch was some ~1/2 scale pitch... so Stuff wasn't extraordinary by any means.

this guy is another example to pay attention to ratio of the quality of each pitch to each other = frequency of use etc... + pitch selection. knucklecurve seems to be a wicked pitch for a RP+velo, but secondary > FB so it's thrown more.

by the end of it, his ratings did increase, but i think mostly due to AI-eval with overall, anyway. still a 72-75ish/80. it wasn't inaccuracy, at least not beyond a few ticks on a 20-80 or 1-100pt scale.

i'm not sure if my best use were the couple LR/highleverage years where he pitched 90-100ip with a 3+war, or when i finally moved him to a closer the last couple years as another guy retired. had a 80+ip year as a setup man too. can't recall if he got to 3war to give idea of stats, but close even with a few less innings.

[el_habes]

Played through the Nationals season back in OOTP 15. Jerry Blevins (who was pretty pedestrian for the Nats IRL) gave up like 2 or 3 earned runs all year across 50-60+ IPs. He was the ultimate LOOGY.