The Astros' bullpen doesn't feature a name like Craig Kimbrel or Wade Davis or Aroldis Chapman. Their highest-paid reliever (Scott Feldman) was a starter for most of his career before being bounced from the rotation at the end of April. Their presumed closer (Luke Gregerson) was removed from the role

The Astros' bullpen doesn't feature a name like Craig Kimbrel or Wade Davis or Aroldis Chapman. Their highest-paid reliever (Scott Feldman) was a starter for most of his career before being bounced from the rotation at the end of April. Their presumed closer (Luke Gregerson) was removed from the role just a few weeks ago. They have two pitchers who were simply cut loose for nothing in recent years by Arizona (Will Harris, Tony Sipp).

Meet the mostly anonymous Houston bullpen -- but also, meet the best bullpen in baseball, especially over the past 30 days.

Now, saying anything is the best anything is immediately going to require some evidence, particularly with Chapman, Andrew Miller and Dellin Betances laying waste to the American League in New York. So far this year, the Astros have the sixth-best bullpen ERA (3.22, all stats entering Thursday), but while that's good, we can do a lot better than just pure traditional ERA, which is subject to issues with defense and scoring calls.

At 3.08, the Astros have the best Fielding Independent Pitching bullpen in the game. (FIP is an ERA estimator that relies on strikeouts, walks, and home runs, to eliminate items pitchers can't control.) They have the lowest walk rate in baseball, at just 5.5 percent, and even that terribly undersells them, because that's the lowest (!) bullpen walk rate in 1,700 bullpen seasons since baseball integrated in 1947, above the 1984 Royals. They also have 2016's third-highest strikeout rate, at 26.8 percent, and for context, realize that those strikeout and walk rates are roughly the same as Jon Lester's.

Gif: Michael Feliz strikeout reel

It's not just overall performance, either. It's about the situational performance, because despite the early struggles of Ken Giles and the sometimes high-profile Gregerson blown saves, the Astros' relievers have been at their best in the biggest spots. We can measure that with a metric called Win Probability Added, which accounts for "clutch" performances based on game situation, because (for example), a run-scoring single in a tie game is more important than a three-run homer in a blowout.

The Astros, so far, rank well. Real well.

Bullpen Win Probability Added, 2016



Woke up this morning to see if anything changed. Nope, James Hoyt is still the best pitcher in our entire organization including MLB team — Morgan Ensberg (@MorganEnsberg) June 23, 2016

Hoyt, a 29-year-old Idaho native, was signed for $500 prior to 2013 by the Braves after spending years in independent baseball, then was shipped to Houston in the Evan Gattis deal. At 6-foot-6 and 230 pounds, MLBPipeline.com says he has "two plus pitches in his fastball and slider," and he's struck out 130 in 85 Triple-A innings as an Astro.

It's almost not fair that Houston has him available when they want him, and it says a lot about the production the Astros have received that they haven't needed him yet. It's a really, really good bullpen -- even if the names don't quite stop traffic. It's a big part of how this team got back in the race.