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Reliever Roundup & Bullpen Bonanza — Week 22 Individual Rankings
We are at the end of Week 22 of the season. Here are the top ten individual relievers in each league. But these rankings 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. Players who have played for multiple teams this season are ranked based on their full-season totals, even if they have switched leagues. They are ranked in the league of their current team.
(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 22 Individual Reliever Rankings
AL Middle Relievers
Shawn Armstrong of the Tampa Bay Rays takes the #1 position with an overall score of 42.4. Brock Stewart of the Minnesota Twins is second with 37.4. Third place goes to Danny Coulombe of the Baltimore Orioles with a score of 28.9. Tim Mayza and Jay Jackson, both of the Toronto Blue Jays, are fourth and fifth with scores of 27.3 and 26.0, respectively. Coming in sixth is Gabe Speier of the Seattle Mariners with a score of 23.4. Seventh and eighth place go to Robert Stephenson of the Tampa Bay Rays, who began the season with the Pittsburgh Pirates, and Ian Hamilton of the New York Yankees. Their scores are 23.3 (combined total) and 22.2, respectively. Sam Hentges of the Cleveland Guardians and Brennan Bernardino of the Boston Red Sox round out the top ten, a flip flop from last week. They came in at 17.5 and 15.8, respectively.
AL Setup Men
Erik Swanson of the Blue Jays leads the AL setup men with an overall score of 146.5. Runner-up Jason Foley of the Detroit Tigers has an overall score of 133.7. Chris Martin of the Red Sox holds third place with a score of 128.5. Justin Topa of the Mariners is in fourth with 117.4. Aroldis Chapman of the Texas Rangers, who began the season with the Kansas City Royals, is in fifth with a combined total of 115.5 between his two teams. In sixth is Colin Poche of the Rays with 113.5. Coming in seventh is Hector Neris of the Houston Astros, scoring 109.7. Matt Brash of the Mariners, Tyler Holton of the Tigers, and Matt Moore of the Guardians, who began the season with the Los Angeles Angels, round out the top ten. Their scores are 107.4, 105.9, and 97.5, respectively.
AL Closers
The leading closer is still the injured Felix Bautista of the Orioles, who scored 248.8. Number two is Alex Lange of the Tigers, who scored 157.6. Yennier Cano of the Orioles and Will Smith of the Rangers are third and fourth with scores of 142.7 and 112.9, respectively. Emmanuel Clase of the Guardians rounds out the top five with a score of 109.5. In sixth is Carlos Estevez of the Angels (108.8), followed closely by Clay Holmes of the Yankees (108.7). Jhoan Duran of the Twins, with a score of 101.0, is in eighth. Jordan Romano of the Blue Jays and Ryan Pressly of the Astros finish off the top ten. Their scores are 87.0 and 81.7, respectively.
NL Middle Relievers
Of NL middle relievers with at least 20 appearances, Jeff Hoffman of the Philadelphia Phillies comes in first with a score of 26.5. Angel Perdomo of the Pittsburgh Pirates (25.4) comes in second. Third and fourth belong to Trevor Megill of the Milwaukee Brewers (23.7) and Kirby Yates of the Atlanta Braves (21.3). Hoby Milner of the Brewers (20.4) rounds out the top five. Steven Okert of the Miami Marlins (18.7) is in sixth, while Ryan Walker of the San Francisco Giants (18.6) is in seventh. Ryan Brasier of the Los Angeles Dodgers, who began the season with the Red Sox, is in eighth with a combined score of 17.6 between the two teams. Dylan Lee of the Braves (17.3) and Tom Cosgrove of the San Diego Padres (16.8) complete the top ten.
NL Setup Men
Andrew Nardi of the Marlins leads all eligible NL setup men with a score of 166.2. Joel Payamps of the Brewers, with 131.0, is second. Tyler Rogers of the Giants is in third (117.6). Fourth and fifth are Julian Merryweather of the Chicago Cubs and Lucas Sims of the Cincinnati Reds, with scores of 101.7 and 94.6, respectively. Colin Holderman of the Pirates is sixth, scoring 84.7. At seventh and eighth are Hunter Harvey of the Washington Nationals and Mark Leiter Jr.of the Cubs. Their scores are 84.6 and 83.1, respectively. David Robertson of the Marlins, who started the season with the New York Mets, and Caleb Ferguson of the Dodgers finish off the top ten with scores of 77.7 (combined) and 74.5, respectively.
NL Closers
The highest-scoring closer in the NL by a wide margin is, once again, Devin Williams of the Brewers, with a score of 247.1. Raisel Iglesias of the Braves is the runner-up, with 184.7, while David Bednar of the Pirates is third, scoring 173.3. Alexis Diaz of the Reds is fourth, with Paul Sewald of the Arizona Diamondbacks in fifth. Their scores are 157.9 and 132.2, respectively, with Sewald’s total including his performance with the Mariners before the July 31 trade. In sixth and seventh are Tanner Scott of the Marlins (130.1) and Kyle Finnegan of the Nationals (123.5). Giovanny Gallegos of the St. Louis Cardinals is eighth (118.5). Rounding out the top ten are Evan Phillips of the Dodgers and Camilo Doval of the Giants. Their respective scores are 111.9 and 104.7, respectively.
Full Leaderboards
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 the end of play Thursday, September 7, AL averages were 3.0 GE/BE, 4.1 (rounded) GE, 70.9 ScOtg%, 29.1 IS%, 98 ERA–, 1.319 WHIP, 2.8 HR%, 14.3 K–BB%.
NL averages were 3.0 GE/BE, 4.0 (rounded) GE, 71.2 ScOtg%, 31.8 IS%, 95 ERA–, 1.317 WHIP, 2.8 HR%, 14.1 K–BB%.
Click here to return to the rankings.
Also See:
Week 21 Individual Rankings, Week 20 Individual Rankings, Week 16 Individual Rankings.
Week 22 Team Rankings, Week 21 Team Rankings, Week 19 Team Rankings (Midweek Update), Week 18 Team Rankings, Week 16 Team Rankings (Midweek Update), Week 15/All-Star Break Team Rankings
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