You may hear in a baseball blog that a team is being let down by their bullpen, which is the group of pitchers that come into the game when the starter is done for the night, either due a pitch count or ineffectiveness. A team with a shaky bullpen can be easy to pass up when you’re making a few MLB picks, and here is what you should look for in a solid reliever
ERA
A sportsbook review would probably recommend ERA (or earned-run average) for all pitchers, and it’s defined as the number of earned runs a pitcher allows divided by the number of innings pitched. However, it’s especially important for a reliever, who won’t usually stay in a game that long, so the amount of runs they gave up is magnified.
Holds
Holds is a relatively new statistic thanks to the sabermetric era, and it’s basically pertains to a pitcher that isn’t eligible for a win, records an out, and maintains a lead of no more than three runs for at least an inning. There are other ways to define it, so check to see what your sportsbook defines as a hold, but a reliever with a lot of them is a pitcher that doesn’t relinquish leads when they enter the game.
Blown Saves
These are the closers you want to stay away from as there is nothing more aggravating in baseball when a closer can’t finish off a team in the ninth inning. A team that can’t shut it down in the final inning is definitely a team you want to avoid in your sport betting book.