You seem determined to prove me wrong.
Yes there are plenty of great reliever seasons. But it doesnt change the fact that BJ's is still one of the best.
I did a filtered search where I sorted all 30+ save seasons by WHIP. BJ finished 12th of all time. Then I sorted it by ERA. He finished 9th. Combining those 2, he DEFINITELY had one of the greatest seasons by a reliever of all time, as ERA and WHIP are the 2 best indicators of a pitchers effectiveness.
Looking at the same stats I've already presented, Eckersley and Gagne are probably the top 2 just because their WHIP's are the 2 lowest, and their ERA's are miniscule. BJ's season falls somewhere in the next 10.
Some of the seasons you listed don't belong in a group of "top seasons". Jeff Shaw had a whip of 1.10 an ERA of 2.38, and a bad K/9IP ratio. That is nowhere near as impressive as the 11 I listed.
Of the seasons you did list, Saito 06, Foulke 03, Beck 93, Nen 98, Hoffman 98 would probably make a top 30 seasons by a reliever list.
WHIP really is the key stats, followed closely by ERA. If you have a WHIP over 0.95, then there are just far too many other pitchers who have had better seasons to consider.
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