Congratulations to Dennis Eckersley, the run-away winner for the Reliever of the Year award. "Eck" garnered 13 o 17 first place votes, and outdistanced Gabe White in total points 72-35.
Eckersley was indeed the clear choice - he easily had the best rate stats and pitched enough innings and recorded enough saves to be among the league leaders.In second place was Gabe White, the ATB leader in saves. Owners seemed to favor White over Wagner due to his 11 additional saves, an odd choice given that Wagner too was among the league leaders and clearly had the better year in terms of raw ability.
No doubt Rob Murphy would have made a better showing had he been listed on the original ballot. Voters liked the long relievers with plenty of innings pitched - see Joe Neale and Lindy McDaniel - but we can safely say he would not have one the award with just 3 saves to his name.
Vin Scully
In what will undoubtedly be a controversial decision, Robb Nen narrowly edged out Kent Tekulve for the Vin Scully Reliever of the year award. It was a curious decision - Nen had slightly better rate stats, but pitched in less than half the innings and recorded 20 less saves and 7 less wins.
Inexplicably, Frankie Rodriguez and his 1.67 ERA received two third place votes, shedding little light on the overall knowledge of the ATB owner base!
Just as in Harry Caray, owners respected the long reliever as Frank Killen locked up third place with 148 innings of outstanding pitching.
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