Saturday, October 27, 2012

2012 AB4AR Season Review: What We Thought We Knew & What We Learned (The Bullpen)

(Gotta love Untuck Time.  Courtesy of the AP)

While the starting rotation has been an up-and-down affair recently, a strong bullpen has been a staple of this extended era of success for the Yankees, going all the way back to the '96 World Series.  Mo has been the fixture at closer since then, and has had a cycle of solid setup guys in front of him each and every year.  D-Rob and Sour Puss set that table heading into 2012, with a group of familiar faces from the season before surrounding them, so this season was expected to be another successful one for the Yankee 'pen.  The depth was there, the roles were already known, and the future was being built during the present.  But as was the case with the rest of the team this year, it was a season to expect the unexpected.