Is Riley Obrien improved or just lucky?

[3dender]

He's 30 years old and has never stuck at the MLB level. Is he going to become a contributor now or are we just riding the hot hand until it implodes?

Relievers are fickle. He could be amazing thia year then go back to sucking next year. Many relievers have a year ir 2 where they figure it out only to fall apart the next year amd not be able to fins it in time before getting dfa.

Id trust him with closer games for now til he falls apart but wouldn't offer any big money extension in offseason even if he keeps this up.

Then how do you plan a bullpen roster for 2026 and beyond? How do you know when you have enough arms and can start drafting OF/DH bat first prospects? Seems like with relievers no amount of playing them will tell us "what we've got"? Is it just going to be a crapshoot every year?

Bullpen's have always been hard. As much grief as MO gets on this board, he does not get enough credit for his ability to put a bullpen together. Romero for Sosa a few years ago. Signing Maton this year. Fernandez was great last year, but fell apart this year. Leahy has been decent this year. Granillo looks like he will be good. Now O'Brien. No need to throw money at him as he is not arb eligible until 2027.

How do you put good bullpen's together, you get 8 guys that you think will be good at the beginning of the year backed up by 3-4 guys in the minors that are good arms. When 2-3 of the 8 fail, you hope 2-3 of the young ones step up. Outside of Helsley under performing this year, that is more or less what has happened for the Cards this year. Fernandez failed, King has been inconsistent. They have been replaced by Granillo and O'Brien. Helsley OK, Romero after a rough start is doing well, Maton great, Leahy pretty good, King not reliable and Matz good. That is six guys. Add in Granillo and O'Brien and the Cards have 8 pretty reliable guys with Graceffo, Fernandez and one or two others that could improve. It is a playoff caliber bullpen.

+1

Mo hasn't gotten enough credit for cobbling together effective BPs. Yes we'd love them to have more K-power but he's still really good at scrap-heaping a cheap bullpen into an effective unit. Maton this year, Kittredge and Fernandez last year. Steve Cishek was a good cheap pickup years ago. Even John King was an underrated acquisition both at the time and over the last two years when he was better than anyone had the right to expect. JoJo, Gallegos... the list goes on.

O'Brien is merely the latest project and I remember when they get him last year there was a lot of talk about how they were targeting good sweepers. Seems to have been a decent strategy.