How the West was Won

Go to the ESPN NL Team Batting stats site. Click on the headers to sort by RUNS. We finish 15th of 16 teams. Sort by OPS. We finish 16th. But we had an inkling that might be so. What I find interesting is that SD, AZ and LA aren't that much better in those categories--all are 10th spot or below. Colorado is off the charts, of course, but we'll throw them out for the sake of discussion. Now click on NL Team Pitching. We knew SD won with arms, and the stats bear it out. We look pretty good, though. And LA and AZ are right there, too (sort by BAA--batting average against--and Runs allowed). Of course, they all won more games than they lost. And we finished in last place, 11 games behind LA (82-80). What's the deal? Was our fielding that bad? Not really. Go ahead, click on NL Team Fielding. I know, we didn't steal enough bases! We know how to sort for that, eh? Use "Expanded I" in Team Batting and you'll see we were FOURTH in the league! Hmmmm. Of course, we blew a lot of saves last year (Team Pitching, Expanded I), and more importantly, had few save opportunities, giving us a wretched percentage. So, I conclude from this deep and thoughtful analysis that we need a better bullpen. Not just a save artist, but setup men, set-up setup men, spot relievers, lefty-righty specialists, DP dudes, K wizards, and innings eaters. Whaddya say, amigos? How 'bout an exciting discussion about our bullpen? Hell, we gotta talk about SOMETHING between now and spring training!!!!