Topps Cards That Should Have Been: 2008 Reliever Roundup

I think Topps just doesn't like relief pitching.

I get it, they have to put out a 600-card set every year, they can't recreate every team's 40-man, they still have to include leader cards and subsets and crap, and they have to make cards of all the relevant players and potential big rookies, but I always wonder how they decide which relievers to make for each set. Relief pitching is a very fickle business, and it's very hard to be consistently good in consecutive years. Topps can make cards of relievers who were good in 2007 for 2008, but half of them will end up crapping out and disappointing people and the deserving ones will get left out.

Collecting relievers who go on to have sharp runs late in their career is tough, because it's hard to track a chronology when Topps is so wishy-washy on who gets cards. So that's why this project exists, and this is likely the first installment of several where I just do a bunch of middle relievers and closers that deserved cards that year.

 Keith Foulke is up first because his return from surgeries in 2008 was a relatively big deal. Foulke was one of the best relief assets of the early 2000s, being extra-reliable for Chicago, Oakland, and especially Boston, becoming their closer for the 2004 World Series campaign, and notching 3 postseason saves with them. After the 2006 season he undergoes surgery, makes himself available, and his old team the Oakland A's re-signs him. This was a big deal in the baseball preview magazines back then [Athlon, Sporting News, etc], but Topps didn't move on it. 

Foulke's 2008 A's numbers were solid, with a 4.06 ERA in 31 appearances, but not enough to grant him career longevity past that season. I still think Topps should have bitten, though, as there were good photos available from the 2008 Spring Training China series.

The '08 A's also had another sharp relief asset on their roster..

 Santiago Casilla played for 14 years, won 3 World Series' as a charter member of the Giants' mega-teams, has a career 3.26 ERA, and for a good 10 year period was one of the most consistent relievers in the game. He's not necessarily a Hall of Famer, but he deserves more respect.

Casilla spent the first 6 years of his career with the Oakland Athletics, who used him sporadically early before plugging him in as a major relief asset in 2007, which means he SHOULD HAVE gotten a card in 2008 Topps but...I guess giving Chris Snelling a Phillies card was more important evidently. Casilla in 2008 held a 3.93 ERA in 51 appearances. Despite not getting his earned runs numbers down til he made the Giants, he was still a solid tool for Oakland in their dire period. 

A few guys here would eventually be trusted closers, making their lack of inclusion all the more baffling. Juan Carlos Oviedo, known in 2008 still as Leo Nunez [therefore I'm using the name Topps would have given him in 2008], had a breakout season for the Royals while Topps wasn't looking. He had a 2.98 ERA, 4 wins in 45 appearances, and would have been an intriguing unsung hero target for Topps. Heck, the Marlins even saw some promise in Oviedo, and traded Mike Jacobs to nab him, and for 3 years he was their closer, before injuries and the name issue would curtail the rest of his career. 

Another reliever whose ninth-inning numbers would take off in 2009, David Aardsma was still shadowing Jonathan Papelbon in 2008, and while he ended the season with a 5.55 ERA and 30 earned runs, it was still great lead-up to his 2009 season, where he'd notch 38 saves for the Mariners. 

Speaking of the 2008 Sox...

2008 was the last season for career setup man and relief specialist Mike Timlin, who won four World Series rings; two with Toronto in the 90s, and two with Boston in the 00s. If there was a Hall of Fame specifically for relief pitchers, he'd be first or second ballot [my dad disagrees]. Timlin's last season in Boston was, like Aardsma's, a bit disappointing; he'd have a 5.66 ERA in 47 appearances, only strike out 32, and end sort of with a whimper a season after a World Series. He still got a nice send-off from the Sox, and still comes around every time there's an anniversary of the 2004 or 2007 titles.

Brett Tomko, a reliever whose claim to fame, amongst other things, was being traded to Seattle for Ken Griffey Jr., had a card in 2008 Topps Update as a member of the Kansas City Royals. However, that's not where he ended the season. In mid-June, he was released by KC and signed as a free agent with the San Diego Padres, where he'd play the rest of the season, similarly out of the playoff conversation. 

Tomko's interesting because he was capable both as a starter and as a reliever, so while he was nowhere near as potent of a player as Griffey, he was still helpful in several spots for several teams in the 2000s. For instance, Tomko didn't start any games for SD in 2008, but he was used in longer relief, playing 9 innings in 6 appearances, and did fairly well for himself, with a 1.93 ERA and 9 Ks. This type of finish caused his stock to rise, and for the Yankees to sign him for the 2009 season...and promptly trade him to Oakland before they won the World Series. 

Speaking of 'always a bridesmaid, never a bride' types, Darren Oliver was most notably one of the 'two old men' on the 2011 Rangers with Arthur Rhodes, two guys over 40 getting batters out like the best of them. Oliver had the more scattershot career, as he bopped around for 20 years, mostly on western teams but occasionally teams like Boston or St. Louis. 2008 was in the midst of his 3 year stint in Anaheim, where he became a loyal, sturdy set-up tight to Francisco Rodriguez. Oliver, at 37, finished 2008 with a 2.88 ERA, 7 wins and 48 Ks in 54 appearances. In 2 years, he'd return to Arlington and become a World Series contender for two seasons.

Moving to a 2008-era World Series also-ran, J.P. Howell is one of the more under the radar relief heroes of the late 2000s and early 2010s, mostly with Tampa but eventually with LA. Howell's breakout season was as a member of the 2008 Rays, which is a pretty lucky time to break out. Howell's 92 strikeouts and 2.22 ERA caught the eye of a lot of people that year, and made him one of the Rays' secret weapons during the postseason, where he had another 17 strikeouts in 9 appearances, despite giving up a few more runs. He even ended up with 2 losses against the Phils in the World Series. Still, Howell rebounded and became a bullpen mainstay for this era of Rays baseball. 

As Taiwan was already beaming over the US success of Chien-Ming Wang, a second Taiwanese crossover hit was slowly booming in Los Angeles. Like Wang, Kuo showed up in the mid-2000s, and while it took him longer than Wang to find a true niche in LA, in 2008 he was finally shifted to the bullpen full-time, where he had his lowest ERA with 2.14, 96 strikeouts in 42 appearances [80 innings, though, so he was used in longer relief]. His 2008 numbers would later be dwarfed by his stellar start in 2010, where he'd be rewarded with an ASG nomination, deservingly so. 

The biggest omission for me, as far as relievers go in 2008, was Ryan Madson. When I think of the Phillies' 2008 World Series win, and that bullpen, one of the main figures I think of besides Brad Lidge is Ryan Madson, and his relief work in this era of Phillies baseball is vastly overlooked. Madson, who'd been relieving games for Philly since 2004, was already a modest bullpen threat by this point, but in 2008 he took off, with 76 appearances, a 3.05 ERA and 67 strikeouts. His postseason numbers solidified the dominance, with a 3.58 ERA, a win in the NLCS against LA, 14 strikeouts and a sub-1 WHIP. Madson would continue to be a relief highlight for Philly, Oakland, Washington and LA. Wouldn't have happened without 08. So, thanks Topps for leaving him out there.

So, those are the relievers that don't fit into other categories I have prepared for future 2008 posts, but fit here. Topps may not like relief pitchers, but I sure do.