Ranking MLB's Closers, Part VI

  Sorry for the break readers. I have no good excuses except that I didn't want to write about this. To be honest, I'm not sure if any of you care anyway. But I will write it for you since I promised. Please comment to show that you care.

    Anyway, the five closers I was narrowed down to almost three months ago were Kenley Jansen, Jhoan Duran, Jordan Romano, Emmanuel Clase, and Felix Bautista. Let's get down to business.

    

    5: Kenley Jansen
Kenley Jansen has had a pretty good career so far. He has compiled a total 420 saves (7th all time) and a 2.52 ERA to go along with the number. He also has a career 12.8 K/9 rate to combat his 2.7 BB/9. Jansen has a career .182 BAA and a home run rate .5% lower than the league average. However, Jansen has been on a bit of a decline lately, pitching to a 3.19 ERA over the last five seasons. Don't get me wrong, this is still a good number, but nothing compared to his 2.20 ERA through his first nine seasons. Because of this decline and his age (36), I have decided to cut him at five.

    4: Jordan Romano
Romano has pitched five years in the bigs, but only three as the closer. In that span, he has 95 saves and a 2.37 ERA. He also has an 11.1 K-9 rate. His career ERA is 2.67 and his K-rate is 11.3. He does walk a few too many batters, at 3.5 per nine. Certainly not the worst among all the closers, but yikes. I hate walks. He has a career BAA of .199 and an OPS against of .605. A solid pick, my friend, but not as good as the last three.

    3: Jhoan Duran
I hated needing to rank these three final closers, but I've decided to cut Jhoan Duran at the bronze. The pitcher has compiled a lovely 2.15 ERA in his two seasons and 130 innings of work, and the 2023 season was his first as closer. He collected 27 saves and had a 2.45 ERA this season while striking out 12.1 batters per nine and walking 3.6. However, his career walks per nine is a nice 2.8. His career BAA is .207, and opponents are only hitting to a .596 OPS against him. His career record is only 5-10, but seeing as how he is a closer, that's decently predictable. A very good closer, and I don't have much to say about him besides that.

    

    So now we only have two friendly faces left. Felix Bautista and Emmanuel Clase. Who is the best closer in the AL. The answer is...

    1: Felix Bautista
Bautista tops the list. The 6'8" wonder pitched to 33 saves and a 1.48 ERA this season and was an enormous part of the young Orioles team that we just witnessed winning 101 games this season. In his two season career, Bautista's collected 48 saves, has a 12-6 record, and a 1.85 ERA. He struck out a whopping 16.2 batters per nine this past year and has a career K/9 of 14.1. His walk rate is certainly not as bad as I would have expected, at 3.5 batters per nine, and he, like all of the top three consistently tops 100 mph with his fastball. He has an absolutely filthy splitter, and opponents are slashing only .156/.245/.255 against him. There is not one person who is a realistic match for this man. However, Bautista underwent Tommy John this season and may not return next year, which almost made him lose to our runner up. 

    2: Emmaunuel Clase

Clase is very solid. He has a career 2.00 ERA and 111 saves in his 4 years of service. He's only walking 1.8 batters per nine, which makes me oh so happy, but his K/9 is only 8.9, by far the lowest in the top five. His career W-L% is only .364, but again, he is a closer. Opponents are slashing only .205/.247/.278 against him, which is also REALLY good. There's not really a bad quality about him that I can think of. His home run rate is 1.2%, almost 1/3 of the league average,  and he has youth on his side at only 25. He has a very good career ahead of him and may one day rest atop this list (although there's no way I'm ever doing this again).

    So, there you have it. The best AL closer is Felix Bautista and the best in the NL is Devin Williams. I'm so glad I'm finally done with this, and thank you for reading.