and if we can acquire better middle relievers than Wheeler, great. But sometimes our pendulum of evaluation swings too far the other way once we become disenchanted.

Wheeler is not a great reliever. If he is consistently placed in high leverage situations he will disappoint often enough, and those disappointments will outweigh in our imaginations his more ordinary successes. But as a middle reliever he is serviceable, at least in the sense that most pitchers in that role are.

It is likely that any reliever we get for that role will about the same. It is reasonable to argue that for what he cost we can get someone at least as good, but whoever it is is likely to fail often enough to create a similar backlash.

I think “useful but not overly productive” is a fair assessment. Like players such as Gross, this kind of role player is often underappreciated because they are not stars. But no team has 25 all-stars, so the key is to play to the strengths of the players we have, not to castigate them because they do not succeed every time out.

From July 2 to the end of the year, Wheeler did his job effectively 22 times, even if in a few more cases he came near the edge. He clearly failed 5 times. Actually, 24 times he either finished an inning without incident (no hits, walks or runs) or got the save in spite of allowing a run. The peripherals may warn us that he will regress, but his history for the past number of years indicates that year after year he provides serviceable relief.