Short Hops: Braves bullpen 2014 review, 2015 preview

FOXSportsSouth.com's team of Braves writers are taking a look back at 2014, position by position, and breaking down what we know heading into the Winter Meetings Dec. 7-11 in San Diego. Here's a look at the bullpen:

26.7: Since the start of the 2010 season, no other franchise boasts a better, more consistent bullpen. Braves relievers' 26.7 wins above replacement over that span leads all of baseball, topping the second-best Rockies by 1.3 WAR despite pitching 350 fewer innings.

440 2/3: The Braves ranked 29th in baseball for innings pitched in 2014, as manager Fredi Gonzalez continually leaned on his healthy starting rotation. This is becoming a trend for Atlanta, too: over the past two seasons, only the Cincinnati Reds and Detroit Tigers have utilized their relievers on fewer occasions.

5: In terms of fielding-independent pitching, a metric that gauges pitchers' performance based on factors they can control, the Braves' bullpen has posted five of the top seven seasons in franchise history (Live Ball Era) from 2010 to 2014.

14.82: Among MLB pitchers with 250 innings pitched under their belt, closer Craig Kimbrel's 14.82 strikeouts per nine innings still ranks second-best all-time, right behind current Reds closer Aroldis Chapman (15.32).

1. Can the bullpen sustain this level of dominance?

If there was one unwavering staple of the Frank Wren Era in Atlanta, it was the relief corps, a dominant assembly line of arms that by and large controlled the back end of games. It was a complete renovation project from an underwhelming group in 2008 to the final product of throwing the likes of Rafael Soriano, Eric O'Flaherty, Jonny Venters, Billy Wagner and Kimbrel out against opposing batters, and the production came from everywhere: amatuer draft, waiver wire, below-the-radar trades. Looking back, that was Wren and his staff's bread and butter. As mentioned above, no other bullpen in baseball boasts better numbers since the start of the 2010 season -- best WAR, best FIP, best ERA, best strikeout rate, best home run rate and the second-best percentage of runners stranded on base. No other team is even in the discussion.

The question here is sustainability, though, and there are concerns. The 2014 season was the worst season out of the past five -- not a poor season by any means, but a team worst this decade -- and it saw Gonzalez & Co. forced to mix and match at certain points. Fourteen different relievers logged 10 or more innings for Atlanta this season, with about half of those names providing marginal or negative results. As long as Kimbrel remains healthy, the Braves' bullpen going to feature perhaps the best foundation in the majors and Jordan Walden and David Carpenter, the team's setup men, are not due for free agency until 2017 and 2018, respectively. It's the continued good health of those names and the development of some of the younger arms in a pitching-dominant organization that will likely keep Atlanta liking its chances in close ballgames.

(Oh, and there's also Roger McDowell, perhaps the greatest pitching coach on the planet. Keeping him in Atlanta's dugout for another season was the franchise's biggest offseason win to date.)

2. How does Craig Kimbrel's contract extension look after Year 1?

Atlanta's star closer made headlines during spring training after signing the largest contract ever handed to a reliever pre-free agency, a four-year, $42 million deal with an club option for a fifth season. The questions immediately began pouring in. Did the team overpay? Could he really be worth that much over the life of the contract? Could he stay healthy? (Full disclosure: I was against paying any reliever, even the arguably best reliever in baseball, that much money over that length of time.) But one season in the books, the Braves are looking rather smart.

Before the start of the '14 campaign, the market on player contracts deemed a win (1.0 WAR) to be worth roughly $6 million, according to FanGraphs. Well, with another 61 2/3 innings, a 1.61 ERA and 47 saves in the books, Kimbrel posted a 2.2 WAR while making $7 million this past season. So the team paid almost half the market value per win from Kimbrel this season -- not bad at all. He's been nothing if not reliable. Of course, the contract escalates annually (he'll make $9 million in 2015) so he'll need to be even better to sustain that value, but realistically the team will be more than happy with three or four more seasons of the exact same results.

Kansas City's Greg Holland and a few others have certainly entered the conversation in recent years, but looking at Kimbrel's five-year track record it's still difficult not to label him the best reliever in baseball. He wasn't given as many opportunities in 2014 -- it was his lowest innings pitched total since his rookie season -- but he's still cruising. And he's been worth every penny thus far.

3. Is there a place for Luis Avilan on the MLB roster?

Underneath the surface of a breakout 2013 season in which he stranded practically every runner he came across (83.6 percent) and posted the seventh-best ERA among qualified relievers (1.52), there were issues for Avilan, the Braves' one-time lefty setup man and heir apparent to O'Flaherty and Venters. Those issues came bubbling up last season, and the results were disastrous. The main problem: Avilan does not strike batters out and he walks far too many of them. That's an eventual recipe for failure for any pitcher. Avilan's strikeout and walk rates hit career-worst marks last season, resulting in a 4.57 ERA, a negative-0.3 WAR and a demotion. Will he ever regain his form, namely from the '12 campaign? It's unclear, but Atlanta probably should let him attempt to solve his issues at the Triple-A level before relying on him in high-leverage situations again. There are much better options in the organization and on the free agent market right now.

4. With a righty-dominant bullpen in 2014, where does lefty help come from next season?

The team's four most valuable relievers in 2014 -- Kimbrel, Walden, Carpenter and Anthony Varvaro -- are right-handers. Promising rookie Shae Simmons, who drew comparisons to a first-year Kimbrel before running into some injury issues, is another righty. So, if we're looking at a seven-man relief corps with those names included to start the season, where are the southpaws? As previously discussed, Avilan is a sketchy choice and Alex Wood's days in the bullpen are numbered for completely different reasons. This leaves three viable in-house options with MLB experience: James Russell, Chasen Shreve and Ian Thomas.

Of that group, Russell, who came over in a trade deadline deal with the Cubs, although he turned out not to be the lefty specialist the Braves might have been looking for, and Shreve were the most productive options. Shreve, a rookie, posted a 0.73 ERA and a 5-to-1 K/BB ratio in limited action. Without an offseason acquisition (See: Andrew Miller), expect to see those names, and perhaps a couple minor league arms like Ryan Buchter, in the mix.

5. Can the Braves continue to come through in pivotal spots?

For the past two seasons, Braves relievers have posted the best overall numbers in high-leverage situations, when the "pressure" is at its highest in a game. This may be surprising considering Atlanta does not necessarily subscribe to the throw-your-best-pitchers-in-higher-leverage-situations doctrine, but here are the team's FIP and ERA numbers:

Those numbers may not jump off the screen, but they ranked first in every category except for the '13 FIP score (ranked second behind the Pirates) and, keep in mind, these situations often include when runners are in scoring position, one-run games in the late innings, etc. And when you consider their collective FIP score in all situations was 3.21 this past season, there's an argument to be made that Braves relievers pitched even better with the game on the line, at least in factors they can control. It's unclear if that can continue at such a high level -- some regression would certainly be understandable after two years on top of the mountain -- although the ability to call on Kimbrel when needed does not look like it's losing its effectiveness any time soon.