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MLB teams have become increasingly weary of paying relievers, but that’s mostly reserved for guys without a proven track record. For the game’s very best, big contracts and lofty trade packages are the standard, and teams are willing to pay that price for the premium late-game weapon they’re getting. In this list we’re ranking the 10 best relievers in the game, opening the door for non-closers to join the fray as well. Sometimes you want your best reliever entering a game in the seventh or eighth inning, and we aren’t going to ding a pitcher for helping their team win games.
Any relievers who won’t be ready for Opening Day or will miss the 2025 season will not be ranked
10. Edwin Diaz – New York Mets
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Edwin Diaz posted a 3.52 ERA last season and had a -0.21 Win Probability Added, and while I don’t think he’ll ever reach his 2022 peak again, I don’t think he showed anything last year that would cause me to sound the alarm bells. The right-hander had a 38.9% K%, which is just a tick below his career norms, and this was his first season back from a serious knee injury. I’m not shocked that his ability to get downhill was off, and the underlying data would indicate he’s still one of the best in the game.
He posted a .341 xwOBACON, indicating he limited damage contact decently well for the most part, and he was in the 98th Percentile in Whiff%. A 2.49 xERA is extremely encouraging, as is fourth among qualified relievers in K-BB%. The Mets should feel very good about the closer position, and Edwin Diaz has some strong projections that back up my opinions regarding how misleading his run prevention and leverage-dependant metrics were.
Edwin Diaz will have a second year to get acclimated to his post-surgery knee, when he’s on, MLB hitters stand no chance against him.
9. Ryan Helsley – St. Louis Cardinals
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Last season was another great one for Ryan Helsley, who struck out 29.7% of batters faced with a 2.04 ERA and 2.72 xERA, as the right-hander has settled into becoming the Cardinals’ dominant closer. He recorded 49 saves, but what matters the most to me here is how sustainable his on-field success is. There are no real signs of a decline on the way, as while his four-seamer saw a decline in Whiff% last season, the increased reliance on his slider more than makes up for it.
Sitting at 89.2 MPH with over 33 inches of vertical drop, it plays perfectly off of his fastball and generated a 51% Whiff Rate in 2024. He ranks in the 97th Percentile in Whiff%, the 93rd Percentile in Chase%, and the 97th Percentile in Barrel%, meaning he can both generate strikeouts and weak contact at a high clip. Ryan Helsley is consistent, has overpowering stuff, and has continued to make progress with his ability to attack the bottom of the zone with a slider for ugly swings out of the zone.
A prototypical power pitcher, Ryan Helsley should get paid next winter when he hits free agency, as he has a 1.83 ERA across 152 appearances since 2022.
8. Jeff Hoffman – Toronto Blue Jays
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Should I be worried about Jeff Hoffman’s medicals? Maybe, but since he’s healthy as of right now and hasn’t hit the IL, my list will treat him as a healthy pitcher until proven otherwise. The right-hander has been brilliant over the past two seasons with the Phillies, posting the fifth-best fWAR (3.6) and eight-best K-BB% (26.0) while pitching in a pretty tough run environment for pitchers. His ability to generate whiffs and suppress damage contact stems from a deep pitch mix full of quality weapons.
The former first-round pick can mix four-seamers atop the zone and splitters down to change eye levels, or he could attack with sinkers and sliders to get hitters to get sawed off or fish out of the zone. There isn’t much to criticize in Jeff Hoffman’s game, he’s in the 96th Percentile in Whiff%, has had back-to-back seasons with a HR/9 below 1.00, and sports four different pitches, few pitchers are a safer bet when healthy. Depth of arsenal is rare for a reliever, and it keeps hitters on their toes as they can’t just sit on one signature pitch.
Jeff Hoffman attacks the zone aggressively, misses bats, and keeps the ball in the yard, an easy top-10 reliever in my eyes.
7. Griffin Jax – Minnesota Twins
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Last season was Griffin Jax’s coming out party, as the right-hander was in the 99th Percentile in xERA (2.37) and in the 97th Percentile in K% (34.4%), all while keeping his groundball rate above 50%. His diverse and effective repertoire raised some very real questions about whether the Twins would shift him to the rotation, but their GM has since come out and said he’ll remain in the bullpen. With a hard sweeper that gets 13 inches of lateral movement, a four-seamer with good vertical ride at 97 MPH, and a wicked changeup, he’s impossible to hit.
It doesn’t even factor in a sinker that has solid movement at around 97 MPH with a curveball that generates over 50 inches of drop; his arsenal is both diverse and overpowering. He was 1st among all relievers in Pitching+ (117), which factors in both stuff and command, and I have a hard time believing this was a fluke season. Jax has perhaps the worst track record on this list, but his 2024 season was so good that you just cannot leave him off of a top-10 reliever list right now.
Griffin Jax punches out tickets with the best of them while generating a lot of contact on the ground; that’s what makes for a bullpen ace. Doesn’t hurt that he has an 80-grade name too.
6. Tanner Scott – Los Angeles Dodgers
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The Dodgers signing Tanner Scott shouldn’t just be viewed as the rich getting richer, but rather as if Bill Gates somehow bought out Amazon. Baseball’s best roster adds someone who has arguably been the best reliever in baseball over the past two seasons, sporting a 2.04 ERA and 31.3% K%. He also leads baseball in WAR (4.5) and WPA (+8.07) over that stretch, did I mention that the reigning World Series Champions signed him less than a week after adding a 23-year-old Japanese phenom?
He’s got a dominant four-seamer from a low slot that sits around 97 MPH with above-average vertical ride, making it an excellent whiff pitch at the top of the zone. Pair that with a vicious slider that has good two-plane movement, and you can see how Scott is third among qualified relievers in league-adjusted ERA (ERA-) since 2023. Tanner Scott’s stuff is electric, batters rarely do damage against him, and he just signed with arguably the best organization at player development in all of baseball.
May God help us all. (The Dodgers are going to trade for Luis Robert Jr. instead)
5. Felix Bautista – Baltimore Orioles
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Felix Bautista is expected to make the Orioles’ Opening Day roster, and there were some talks about him returning late in 2024 for a playoff run before they decided to be more cautious with his recovery. To put it simply, Bautista is arguably the best reliever in the sport when healthy, as his fastball-splitter combination is ridiculous. With a 40.4% K% and 1.85 ERA across 121 MLB appearances, the Orioles have a closer capable of slicing through a lineup with relative ease.
His four-seamer averages 99 MPH with over 20 inches of IVB, making it one of the best heaters in the entire sport as hitters haven’t been able to make contact with it, and when they do, it’s usually a weak flyball. From 2022-2023, Bautista was first in fWAR (4.1) and K% (40.4%) among qualified relievers, and if gets back on track in 2025 after his Tommy John Surgery, I expect to put him in the conversation for best reliever in baseball. The gap between Felix Bautista and the four arms ahead of him is marginal at best, and I fear for anyone facing him.
4. Cade Smith – Cleveland Guardians
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The Cleveland Guardians are incredible with pitching development, and Cade Smith should have gotten more love from voters in the Rookie of the Year conversation. In his first taste of MLB action, the right-hander posted a 1.91 ERA, 1.40 FIP, and 35.6% K% across 75.1 IP, and he may have won Relief Pitcher of the Year if not for his teammate. Smith has a three-pitch mix, but he heavily relies on his four-seamer which he utilized nearly 70% of the time in 2025.
Sitting at 96 MPH, the 7.4 feet of extension that Cade Smith gets on it gives it a 97.8 MPH Perceived Velocity on average, and he gets about 16 inches of vertical ride on the pitch while releasing it from a slightly lower arm angle than most four-seamers. Batters hit .174 against his heater with a .253 SLG%, and his wicked splitter plays perfectly off of that excellent fastball. The next step for Smith will be figuring out the sweeper, as it grades out as an above-average pitch in terms of Stuff+ (126) but didn’t have great results.
A rookie who immediately became one of the top relievers in the game, Cleveland has the best 1-2 punch in any bullpen.
3. Devin Williams – New York Yankees
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The New York Yankees had to pivot after losing Juan Soto, and Devin Williams was an out-of-nowhere addition to their bullpen that provided some much-needed star power. While injuries limited him to just 21.2 innings this past season, the 30-year-old was dominant with a 1.25 ERA and 2.11 xERA, striking out 43.2% of batters faced with a 0.42 HR/9. What makes Devin Williams so dominant is his consistency; his ERA has never been higher than 2.50 since his brief MLB stint in 2019.
Since breaking out in 2020, Williams is second in ERA (1.70), third in FIP (2.24), and first in Win Probability Added (+14.33) among qualified relievers. He’s a strikeout machine thanks to his wicked ‘Airbender’, a changeup that generates the most total movement of any offspeed pitch in the Major Leagues. His four-seamer has become an interesting weapon for him at the top of the zone as well, as 2024 was the first season where his fastball was used more than his changeup since 2019.
Batters hit .111 against his four-seamer with a 32.7% Whiff Rate; that’ll play as the second-best pitch in a closer’s repertoire.
2. Emmanuel Clase – Cleveland Guardians
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It seems criminal for Emmanuel Clase to finish anywhere but first on a list for relievers after posting a 0.61 ERA this past season, but this is a list for 2025. Last year was dominant; there’s no other way to possibly describe how good Clase was, as he had a historic year in the run prevention department, but I doubt that he will repeat that kind of season once again in 2025. You can easily point to a .195 BABIP allowed and deduce that it’ll likely increase, although not to the point where his ERA climbs over 2.00.
His cutter is a unicorn pitch and serves as one of the most unique weapons in all of baseball, as Emmanuel Clase throws a 99.5 MPH cutter with good extension and some vertical ride. His cutter generated a 24.5% Whiff Rate and a .187 wOBA allowed, but it can also steal a ton of strikes and that’s very valuable for getting count leverage in late-game scenarios. Clase had a 15% Called Strike Rate this season, freezing hitters to get ahead in the count before bearing down a barrage of cutters to either break their bat or get a strikeout.
His slider is also a gross weapon that sits at 91 MPH with good two-plane movement, and I refuse to hold his playoff issues against him on this list. Since joining the Guardians, no reliever has a better ERA (1.62) or fWAR (8.5); that matters way more than struggling in a small sample size.
1. Mason Miller – Athletics
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While he wasn’t the best reliever in baseball last year by the traditional measures of ERA or saves, Mason Miller earns the top spot on my top 10. The right-hander had a 2.49 ERA and struck out 41.8% of batters faced, flashing perhaps one of the best repertoires you may ever see for a reliever. His 100.9 MPH four-seam fastball had a 37.1% Whiff Rate and .254 wOBA allowed, as he releases it from a lower arm slot with tons of velocity, and he pairs it with a wicked slider that batters just stood no chance against.
Miller allowed a .306 xwOBACON compared to Emmanuel Clase’s .304, making him the second-best pitcher on this list in terms of expected damage contact allowed last season. His 40.1% Whiff Rate and 41.8% K% were first among pitchers on this list who pitched in 2024, and when you’re arguably the best at missing bats and at preventing damage contact, you’re the best reliever in baseball in my eyes. A 1.91 SIERA and 1.77 xERA are insane, and we could see Mason Miller get even better in 2025.
He began tinkering around with a changeup that was absolutely disgusting last season, and if that pitch becomes a reliable weapon for him, the Athletics could see some historic numbers from their young closer.