Reliever Roundup & Bullpen Bonanza — Week 26 Indiv. Rankings

The Top Relievers in each category of the Week 26 Reliever Rankings.

September 27, 2023

Reliever Roundup & Bullpen Bonanza — Week 26 Individual Rankings

We are in Week 26, the final week of the regular 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 30 total 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 26 Individual Reliever Rankings

AL Middle Relievers

Robert Stephenson and Shawn Armstrong, both of the Tampa Bay Rays, take the top two positions with overall scores of 26.9 and 24.9. Sam Hentges of the Cleveland Guardians is third with 21.1. Fourth place goes to Gabe Speier of the Seattle Mariners (17.3). Fifth and sixth place go to Kevin Kelly of the Rays and Ian Hamilton of the New York Yankees, respectively. Kelly has 17.20 and Hamilton has 17.17, both rounded to 17.2. Coming in seventh is Jordan Hicks of the Toronto Blue Jays. His combined total between the Blue Jays and the St. Louis Cardinals, where he began the season, is 16.4. Will Vest of the Detroit Tigers has 15.6, putting him in eighth place. Emilio Pagan of the Minnesota Twins and Jimmy Cordero of the Yankees round out the top ten. They came in at 14.6 and 12.5, respectively.

AL Setup Men

Chris Martin of the Boston Red Sox leads the AL setup men with an overall score of 149.4. Runner-up Tyler Holton of the Tigers has an overall score of 147.7. Colin Poche of the Rays holds third place with a score of 135.0. Aroldis Chapman of the Texas Rangers, who began the season with the Kansas City Royals, is in fourth with a combined score of 131.3 between the two teams. In fifth and sixth place are Jason Foley of the Tigers (129.3) and Erik Swanson of the Blue Jays (128.9). Coming in seventh and eighth are Matt Brash and Justin Topa, both of the Mariners, with 126.0 and 115.6, respectively. Hector Neris of the Houston Astros and Jason Adam of the Rays complete the top ten. Their scores are 103.8 and 89.1, respectively.

AL Closers

(Note: Felix Bautista of the Orioles, with 247.9, has the top score but has been removed from the leaderboard due to his injury.)

In first place among AL closers is Alex Lange of the Tigers, who scored 166.4. Clay Holmes of the Yankees and Yennier Cano of the Orioles are second and third with scores of 131.9 and 130.5, respectively. Emmanuel Clase of the Guardians (112.4) is in fourth. Carlos Estevez of the Los Angeles Angels holds fifth place with 111.2. In sixth is Jhoan Duran of the Twins (103.0), followed by Will Smith of the Rangers (102.2) in seventh place. Jordan Romano of the Blue Jays, with a score of 99.1, is in eighth. Andres Muñoz of the Mariners and Trevor May of the Oakland Athletics complete the top ten. Their scores are 83.0 and 81.2, respectively.

NL Middle Relievers

Of NL middle relievers with at least 30 appearances, Jeff Hoffman of the Philadelphia Phillies comes in first with a score of 28.4. Jesse Chavez of the Atlanta Braves (26.2) comes in second. Third and fourth belong to Hoby Milner of the Milwaukee Brewers (24.4) and Matt Moore of the Miami Marlins (24.2). Moore’s totals include his numbers with the other two teams he has played for in 2023, the Angels and Guardians. Angel Perdomo of the Pittsburgh Pirates (24.1) rounds out the top five. Ryan Brasier (18.7) and Shelby Miller (22.1) — both of the Los Angeles Dodgers — are in sixth and seventh, respectively. Brasier began the season with the Red Sox, and his score includes his stats from both teams. Abner Uribe of the Brewers (19.6), Matt Strahm of the Phillies (17.246, rounded to 17.2), and Taylor Rogers of the San Francisco Giants (17.196, rounded to 17.2) complete the top ten.

NL Setup Men

Andrew Nardi of the Marlins leads all eligible NL setup men by a commanding margin with a score of 249.4. Julian Merryweather of the Chicago Cubs, with 146.9, is second. Tyler Rogers of the Giants is in third (118.4). Fourth and fifth are Joel Payamps of the Brewers and Giovanny Gallegos of the Cardinals, with scores of 110.6 and 105.6, respectively. Hunter Harvey of the Washington Nationals is sixth, scoring 97.4. This narrowly put him ahead of seventh-place Lucas Sims, who scored 97.2. Brusdar Graterol of the Dodgers, David Robertson of the Marlins — who started the season with the New York Mets — and Justin Lawrence of the Colorado Rockies finish off the top ten with scores of 95.9, 84.2 (combined), and 82.2, 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 271.3. David Bednar of the Pirates is the runner-up, with 184.5, while Alexis Diaz of the Cincinnati Reds is third, scoring 163.5. Tanner Scott of the Marlins is fourth, with Paul Sewald of the Arizona Diamondbacks in fifth. Their scores are 150.6 and 136.3, respectively. Sewald’s total includes his performance with the Mariners before the July 31 trade. In sixth and seventh are Camilo Doval of the Giants (120.8) and Raisel Iglesias of the Braves (112.1). Kyle Finnegan of the Nationals is eighth (103.4). Rounding out the top ten are Evan Phillips of the Dodgers and Josh Hader of the San Diego Padres. Their respective scores are 98.9 and 96.0, respectively.

Full Leaderboards

Middle Relievers (AL), full leaderboard, through end of play 9/25. Minimum of 30 total relief appearances.

Setup Men (AL), full leaderboard, through end of play 9/25. Minimum of 30 total relief appearances.

Closers (AL), full leaderboard, through end of play 9/25. Minimum of 30 total relief appearances.

Middle Relievers (NL), full leaderboard, through end of play 9/25. Minimum of 30 total relief appearances.

Setup Men (NL), full leaderboard, through end of play 9/25. Minimum of 30 total relief appearances.

Closers (NL), full leaderboard, through end of play 9/25. Minimum of 30 total relief appearances.

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 Monday, September 25, AL averages were 2.9 GE/BE, 4.3 (rounded) GE, 70.6 ScOtg%, 32.0 IS%, 99 ERA–, 1.321 WHIP, 2.8 HR%, 14.2 K–BB%.

NL averages were 3.1 GE/BE, 4.3 (rounded) GE, 71.3 ScOtg%, 32.0 IS%, 95 ERA–, 1.321 WHIP, 2.8 HR%, 13.9 K–BB%.

Click here to return to the rankings.