[Syd Thrift]

My experience is that relievers aren’t really any “worse” per se, they’re just not rated like they used to be. IRL relievers don’t get 80 grades unless they’re prime Mariano Rivera. That said, relief pitching is always volatile and not super trustworthy and the teams that do a good job with it (hi, my Mariners) tend to just have a lot of bodies in the majors and minors they throw out there and get to choose from (and in the M’s case they like to train the relievers up to throw a couple of pitches, which is in the early stages of being reflected in the game with the development lab).