The Nationals and Braves both tried to fix weak bullpens at the trade deadline:
The league was closing in on its 4 p.m. trade deadline. Both the Nationals and Braves, wrestling atop the National League East, needed bullpen help. So the Nationals, in a span of 40 minutes, dealt for Daniel Hudson from the Toronto Blue Jays and Roenis Elías and Hunter Strickland from the Seattle Mariners. And the Braves, having added Chris Martin from the Texas Rangers on Tuesday night, got Shane Greene from the Detroit Tigers and Mark Melancon from the San Francisco Giants.
WashingtonPost.com
That totaled six new relievers in 24 hours between the two clubs.
I suspect both these teams thought they had pretty good pens going into the regular season, so I’m skeptical that they actually improved things. Individual reliever pitch so little in modern baseball that they are all subject to small sample size effects. This season, with batters hitting home runs a a high rate, any little mistake can lead to a huge impact. We will see if a change of personnel changes the impact of the pen.