Phillies Bullpen Ranked Among Top Ten By Buster Olney

ESPN's Buster Olney published his list of the top ten bullpens in baseball (behind Insider wall) and the Phillies made the list... kind of. Olney listed 13 pens in his list with three teams tied for #10. The Phils were among those. Here's what he had to say.

The Phillies' relievers have an enormous advantage over other bullpens because, generally speaking, their workload is limited by the huge number of innings contributed by the front part of the team's rotation; because of Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee and Cole Hamels, no NL bullpen threw fewer innings than Philadelphia's Jonathan Papelbon, who takes over as the Phillies' closer, and while Antonio Bastardo appeared to tire in his first full season as a reliever, he was dominant for most of the summer. Michael Stutes and David Herndon were effective, as well, and it's possible that Brad Lidge will come back in a middle relief role.