Um, I think you are discounting ip and save conversions in your little formula. Also, ERA for relievers are far from the best tool to judge their effectiveness. They come in with the bases loaded and allow three straight singles/walks and none of the runs are assigned to their era.
Again, you are splitting hairs in terms of era/whip. Anytime it is under 1 that means you allowed less than one runner on base per inning. Pretty much perfect. .7, .8, .9 whatever. K/9 is important, but more of a telling stat for sp's. Most of these pitchers are in the excellent range of k/9 anyhow so again, splitting hairs. You know what may be even more intimidating than a game ending K, A game ending broken bat dribbler back to the mound. If a closer comes in all season and gets all groundouts, double plays, fly outs without allowing runs to score, you really are going to say it wasn't as good because he didn't necessarily strike them out?
He certainly had an awesome season, but so did many, many , other pitchers have comparable seasons, especially since you just said relief, go look at some of the older guys pitching many more innings of relief in a season. They may have a pesky 2 + era though. Moving on:
Eck 89:
57ip, 55k, 33sv, 1.56, .60
Eck 92:
80ip, 93k, 51sv, 1.91, .91(won mvp/cy young in the year with the higher era/whip)
Street 05:
78ip, 72k, 23sv, 1.72, 1.00
Cordero 05:
74ip 61k, 47sv, 1.82, .96
Nathan 04:
72ip, 89k, 44sv, 1.62, .98
Nathan 06:
68ip, 95k, 36sv, 1.58, .79
Mike Jackson:
64ip, 55k, 40sv, 1.55, .87
Gagne 02 03 04
Wagner 99 03 05
Basically any rivera season.
In conclusion, almost every season at least one person has a comparable year to Ryan in 06.
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