Reliever Roundup and Bullpen Bonanza — All-Star Break Individual Rankings
After the All-Star Break ends, we will begin Week 15 of the season. We’ve been ranking each team’s relief unit since June 12. Now we’ll rank the top ten individual relievers in each league. But we will take it to a different level than the other reliever rankings you’ve seen. We will separate our rankings by closers, setup men, and middle relievers. (We’re not going to worry about ranking long relievers.)
Rankings are split into the following categories. These categories encompass what a relief pitcher’s jobs are and are weighted according to importance. We don’t want to get bogged down, so we’ll keep it brief. (Author’s Note: For full details, including the full leaderboards, leave a comment and I’ll be glad to get back to you.)
Setup Men and Closers
Clutch (45% of score) — How well they perform in late innings either while the game is tied or while holding a narrow lead.
Run Prevention (35%) — How well they keep runs off the board, including inherited runners.
Baserunner Prevention (13%) — Who has the lowest WHIP and lowest home run percentage (HR%). WHIP is 85% of the Baserunner Prevention score, and HR% is 15%.
Command (7%) — Who has the best strikeout percentage minus walk percentage (K–BB%).
Middle Relievers
Run Prevention (60%), Baserunner Prevention (26%), Command (14%)
Totaling Up the Scores
The total score in each category is based on the league average. Zero points equals the league average. Positive scores are better than league average; negative scores are worse. The farther their score is from zero — either positive or negative — the farther they are from the league average.
In addition, a player must have at least 20 relief appearances to qualify for these rankings.
(Note: Due to weighting each score, adding the categories together won’t equal the total score.)
For a full breakdown of each category’s score formula, click here.
Week 15/All-Star Break Individual Reliever Rankings
For the full leaderboards, click here.
AL Middle Relievers
Brock Stewart of the Minnesota Twins is atop the leaderboard with an overall score of 37.8. Second place goes to Tim Mayza of the Toronto Blue Jays, with a score of 37.6. Jake Diekman of the Tampa Bay Rays and Phil Maton of the Houston Astros are third and fourth with scores of 30.9 and 22.1, respectively. Coming in fifth is Trevor Richards, also of the Blue Jays, with a score of 22.0. Sixth and seventh place go to Gabe Speier of the Seattle Mariners and Eli Morgan of the Cleveland Guardians. Their scores are 21.5 and 21.3, respectively. Kevin Kelly of the Rays, Nick Sandlin of the Guardians, and Nate Pearson of the Blue Jays round out the top ten. They came in at 21.1, 19.7, and 19.4, respectively.
AL Setup Men
Jason Foley of the Detroit Tigers leads the AL setup men with an overall score of 145.4. Runner-up Yennier Cano of the Baltimore Orioles is not far behind, with an overall score of 141.0. The injured Matt Moore of the Los Angeles Angels is in third with 128.7. Fourth place is another Blue Jay, Erik Swanson. Aroldis Chapman, recently traded to the Texas Rangers from the Kansas City Royals, is in fifth with a combined total of 94.6 between his two teams. Coming in sixth is Chris Martin of the Boston Red Sox, with 91.5, followed by Enyel De Los Santos of the Guardians, with 86.2. The final three spots of the top ten are taken by Trevor Stephan of the Guardians (81.9), Hector Neris of the Astros (79.1), and Jason Adam of the Rays (74.3).
AL Closers
The leading closer is Will Smith of the Texas Rangers, with a score of 187.0. Number two is Felix Bautista of the Orioles, who scored 167.4. Paul Sewald of the Mariners and Alex Lange of the Tigers are third and fourth with scores of 152.6 and 132.9, respectively. Clay Holmes of the New York Yankees rounds out the top five with a score of 126.8. In sixth is Carlos Estevez of the Angels (113.3), followed by Jhoan Duran of the Twins (95.4). Emmanuel Clase of the Guardians, with a score of 84.4, is in eighth. Jordan Romano of the Blue Jays and Kendall Graveman of the Chicago White Sox finish off the top ten. Their scores are 78.3 and 76.6, respectively.
NL Middle Relievers
Of NL middle relievers with at least 20 appearances, Jesse Chavez of the Atlanta Braves comes in first with a score of 26.4. Steven Wilson of the San Diego Padres (25.52, rounded to 25.5) comes in second. Steven Okert of the Miami Marlins (25.48, rounded to 25.5) is in a close third. In fourth is another Marlin, Andrew Nardi, with 23.2. Taylor Rogers of the San Francisco Giants (18.5) is in fifth, while Dauri Moreta of the Pittsburgh Pirates (17.7) in sixth. Hoby Milner of the Milwaukee Brewers is in seventh, with a score of 15.8. Kevin Ginkel and Kyle Nelson, both of the Arizona Diamondbacks, are in eighth and ninth with scores of 15.7 and 13.6, respectively. Jose Hernandez of the Pirates completes the top ten with 13.2.
On a side note, Austin Adams of the Arizona Diamondbacks has a higher score than Chavez but is three appearances shy of being eligible for the list.
NL Setup Men
Joel Payamps of the Brewers leads all eligible NL setup men with a score of 166.2. Tyler Rogers of the Giants, twin brother of Taylor, is second, with 145.2. Lucas Sims of the Cincinnati Reds is third, with 105.7. Fourth and fifth are Brooks Raley of the New York Mets and Tanner Scott of the Marlins, with scores of 103.0 and 95.4, respectively. Colin Holderman of the Pittsburgh Pirates is sixth, scoring 93.9. Narrowly separated at seventh and eighth are Elvis Peguero of the Brewers and Giovanny Gallegos of the St. Louis Cardinals. Their scores, both rounded to 91.0, are 91.03 and 91.02, respectively. Kyle Finnegan of the Washington Nationals and Dylan Floro of the Marlins finish off the top ten with scores of 83.5 and 81.2, respectively.
NL Closers
The highest-scoring closer in the NL is David Bednar of the Pirates, with a score of 261.1. Alexis Diaz of the Reds is the runner-up, with 212.9, while Devin Williams of the Brewers is third, scoring 195.8. Raisel Iglesias of the Braves is fourth, with Josh Hader of the Padres in fifth. Their scores are 163.1 and 99.3, respectively. In sixth and seventh are David Robertson of the Mets (89.2) and Ryan Helsley of the Cardinals (80.5). A.J. Puk of the Marlins, with a score of 79.9, is eighth. Rounding out the top ten are Justin Lawrence of the Colorado Rockies and Camilo Doval of the Giants. Their respective scores are 77.07 and 77.06, both rounded to 77.1.
Full Score Explanation
For clutch, we will use both the Goose Egg total (33%) and the ratio of Goose Eggs to Broken Eggs (67%) due to the major flaws in Saves and Holds. Full details about Goose Eggs are here. Otherwise, here’s the elevator speech.
A Goose Egg is like a save, except more restrictive. Here are the main points…
- It’s done inning by inning, starting in the seventh.
- Maximum of a two-run lead, not three, but it also includes tie games. Like the save, exceptions are made if the tying run is on base or at bat. (Not on deck, however.)
- Run Breakdown:
- No run of any kind — earned, unearned, or inherited — scores, it’s a goose egg (GE).
- Earned run charged to the pitcher, it’s a broken egg (BE).
- Any other run scores, it’s neither.
- Earned run scores in an inning where he closes out the victory, it’s also neither.
- Starts the inning and gives up no runs, but doesn’t finish the inning, it’s also neither.
- He must finish the inning while recording the following number of outs:
- No one on when he starts the inning — all three;
- One on — at least two;
- Two or three on — at least one.
- Any time it’s “neither,” it’s called a “Meh,” as in “nothing special.” They’re like a stalemate in chess and count as nothing, so we really don’t talk about them.
- Most important is the ratio of GE to BE (GE/BE). The historical average, dating to 1921, is 3.0, or 3-to-1.
For run prevention, we will use a mixture of the Scoreless Outing Percentage (Earned Runs only), Inherited Runners Scored Percentage (IS%), and ERA-minus. ScOtg% is 75% of the score, IS% is 15%, and ERA-minus is 10%.
Click here for the full database of these stats.
League Averages for This Week
At publication, AL averages were 3.0 GE/BE, 3.5 (rounded) GE, 71.4 ScOtg%, 33.0 IS%, 96 ERA–, 1.305 WHIP, 2.6 HR%, 14.2 K–BB%.
NL averages were 3.2 GE/BE, 3.2 (rounded) GE, 71.9 ScOtg%, 30.5 IS%, 95 ERA–, 1.328 WHIP, 2.7 HR%, 14.0 K–BB%.
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Full Leaderboards
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Also See:
Week 15/All-Star Break Team Rankings
Main Photo:
The main photo is a composite of the following images:
