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Pittsburgh Pirates: All-Time Award Winning Team
By Noah Wright
Relief Pitcher – Mark Melancon
Very rarely do relief pitchers get big awards. There’s been no MVP relief pitcher and many don’t even finish as a top-3 finalist in Cy Young voting, even when they are having extremely dominant years. The last relief pitcher to finish top-3 in Cy Young voting was all-time saves leader Mariano Rivera in 2005 (2nd place behind Los Angeles Angles and fan-favorite pitcher Bartolo Colon).
When Fernando Rodney in 2012 and then Zack Britton in 2016 broke the single-season best ERA mark for a reliever, they finished just 5th and 4th in Cy Young voting. Though there is the Trevor Hoffman Award, which is given to the best relief pitcher in the National League every year (Mariano Rivera award in the AL). In 2015, that was Mark Melancon’s award.
Melancon was a fixture in the bullpen for the Pittsburgh Pirates from 2013 through 2016. He was a big reason the team returned to the playoffs. In 260.1 innings, Melancon had a 1.80 ERA, 2.27 FIP, and 0.93 WHIP. While he only had a 23.8% strikeout rate, which is fairly low for a relief pitcher he walked just 4.2% of all the batters he faced. Plus he only gave up 9 home runs, in part because of his knack of getting a bunch of ground balls, having a strong 56.8% ground ball rate.
Next. Pirates Remain Interested in Re-Signing Yoshi Tsutsugo. dark
Melancon’s 2015 season wasn’t even his best year, yet was still so good, he won NL Reliever of the Year. The right-hander pitched a total of 76.2 innings posting a 2.23 ERA, 2.82 FIP, and 0.93 WHIP. Just to show how good Melancon was during his time with the Pirates, those were all the worst numbers he had as a Pirate in a single season. Melancon only struck out 21.2% of batters faced, but had a strong 4.8% walk rate and allowed just 4 home runs all season. He also saved 51 games, a franchise-best mark.