All of these pitchers played for a division champion. But, they also did something else to distinguish themselves from all other relief pitchers since divisional play began in 1969. What is this unusual pitching accomplishment?

The pitchers are:

1. Wade Davis,
2. Santiago Casilla,
3. Zach Britton,
4. Koji Uehara,
5. Joaquin Benoit,
6. Rafael Betancourt,
7. Cla Meredith,
8. Michael Jackson,
9. Dennis Eckersley, and
10. Dick Hall.

Click MORE for links to these players’ Baseball-Reference pages.

The solution to the quiz is that these are the only relief pitchers on a division-winning team to face fewer than 3.75 batters per IP in a 50 IP season with zero starts. More on efficient relief seasons after the jump.

Here are those seasons.

What’s particularly noteworthy about these seasons is how well having such a pitcher correlates with team success, as these 12 seasons represent 46% of only 26 such seasons since 1901. If we relax the criteria and just look at pitchers doing this in 50 relief innings regardless of number of starts, only two more seasons are added, including one by Rollie Fingers for the division-winning 1971 A’s. Removing the distinction between starting and relieving entirely and just looking at pitchers doing this in any 50 IP season adds another two live ball era seasons, by Greg Maddux in 1995 and Bill Hallahan in 1926, both playing for World Series champions (Hallahan, whose nickname was “Wild”, evidently had a goodly number of outs made on baserunners, as he inexplicably made this list despite posting a 5.1 BB/9).

If you were thinking that the original criteria is just another way of looking at relief pitchers on division-winning teams with the lowest WHIP in a 50 IP season with zero starts, you’re mostly right. Here’s that list, with eight of the twelve quiz seasons represented.