Money buys a lot in baseball, but when it comes to bullpen building, from the sharpest clubs to the ones behind the times, from the top payrolls to the lowest ones, all 30 teams are dealing with a level of unpredictability that’s too high for comfort. The season we just saw from the Yankees showed how the difficulty in building a great bullpen can be an equalizer, and the road the Dodgers had to travel to secure a repeat title just underscored the problems teams can have in relief.

The Yankees in recent seasons had made a point to not flex their financial capabilities to try to build the best possible bullpen. Gone are the days of signing Zack Britton or Aroldis Chapman in free agency, and instead, they’ve made a habit of developing solid contributors from obscurity. But that changed this

See Full Page