The best and worst bullpens thus far

Measuring how a team's bullpen is doing can be tricky business. You really can't go by WAR like in other positions because, for example, the Red Sox' bullpen leads baseball in WAR. But that may be because they are pitching more innings than other teams' bullpens. The Red Sox' bullpen is actually doing extremely well, but is it the best as the WAR seems to indicate? One thing is for certain: If your team is not doing well in the bullpen, you are quite aware of that fact as it gets ugly.

So how then should we measure bullpens? We can look at FIP, which is probably better than looking at ERA. We can look at WPA. We can look at which teams have better success with inherited runners scoring. We can look at strikeout to walk ratios. We can look at a lot of different things. Let's look at the top and bottom five in each of these categories and see what we can see.

FIP

The top five teams in FIP are:

1. The Braves - 2.32
2. The Royals - 2.88
3. The Athletics - 2.93
4. The Red Sox - 2.96
5. The Padres - 3.02

The worst five teams in FIP

1. The Astros - 4.70
2. The Reds - 4.65
3. The Rays - 4.61
4. The Phillies - 4.60
5. The White Sox - 4.38

WPA

1. The Padres - 3.87
2. The Giants - 3.52
3. The Brewers - 3.35
4. The Red Sox - 2.38
5. The Braves - 1.61

The bottom five:

1. The Astros: -2.51
2. The Cubs: -2.22
3. The Marlins: -1.62
4. The Reds: -1.61
5. The Blue Jays: -1.52

Inherited Runners:

1. The Pirates - 84%
2. The Giants - 83.8%
3. The Padres - 80.7%
4. The Brewers - 79.6%
5. The Nationals - 78.6%

The worst five:

1. The Cardinals - 66.3%
2. The Tigers - 66.8%
3. The Astros - 67.5%
4. The Royals - 68.7%
5. The Rangers and Yankees: 68.8%

K/BB Ratio:

1. The Brewers: 3.53
2. The Braves: 3.47
3. The Cardinals: 3.20
4. The Giants: 3.19
5. Tigers: 3.14

The worst

1. The White Sox: 1.21
2. The Reds: 1.68
3. The Rays: 1.81
4. The Mets: 1.90
5. The Dodgers: 1.96

WAR

1. The Red Sox: 2.4
2. The Braves and Royals: 2.1
3. The Athletics 2.0
4. Two tied with 1.99

The worst:

1. The Mets: -1.3
2. The Rays: -1.0
3. The Astros and Reds: -0.7
4. The Phillies and Angels: -0.4

So have we seen any sort of patterns here? It is hard to pick on the Reds because they went most of the season thus far without Aroldis Chapman. But the worst bullpens appear to be (from appearances at the bottom of the most categories) the Mets, the Astros, the Rays and the Reds. The Yankees have made a run for the worst lately.

As for the best bullpens, thus far, the Braves, Red Sox, Padres and the Brewers appear to have the best bullpens in baseball followed closely by the A's and the Royals.