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Originally Posted by DJ's left nut
Seems unlikely.
Gonna be hard to top 200+ innings of a 1.25ish ERA and about 12 strikeouts per 9.
Honestly, Herrera wasn't even in the same stratosphere as Davis and Holland in 2014 and he was still incredible. Didn't Davis do something insane like go the entire season without giving up an extra base hit? Davis's 2014 season may have been the best season by a reliever in baseball history (especially for modern era usage).
I'd say that right now the best relievers in baseball are some combination of Jansen (my choice), Chapman, Miller, Britton and Bettances. Davis lost a little velocity and so his stuff wasn't as sharp.
But you could take any combination of those 4/5 guys, put them in a single bullpen and the three you choose are extremely unlikely to be as dominant as the Royals big 3 was that year.
The Yankees had the parts for it last season and with Bettances, Miller and Chapman had as much talent as the Royals had at the back of their 'pen. But with reliever volatility, there's a big difference in having the 3 most talented relievers and having the 3 most effective ones in any given year. The Royals had them all locked in at the same time that season and that just never happens.
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DJ, just curious if you're really that high on Chapman. My limited observation of the guy is that, yeah, he has a 100+ fastball, but it appears to be the only pitch he has with command. In the playoffs, it looked like the eventual approach to the guy was to simply sit on his fastball.
I have the same concern about Herrera although when he does command any pitch beyond the fastball, he's pretty much unhittable. He seemed to just get stuck on the fastball last year. Perhaps this was true of Chapman last year?
Anyway, your thoughts on Chapman?