The save and a tidy ERA are the two most reassuring numbers a closer can show you, and the two easiest to hide behind. A ninth-inning arm can carry both deep into June and still be the reason a contender coughs up a division in September, because by the time those numbers turn ugly, the losses are already banked and the standings already bent. The job looks fine right up until it doesn't.
That's because not every blown save tells the same story. Washington has blown the most saves in baseball with 22 of them. That number, however, says more about a bullpen than a closer. The Nationals have spread those events across 11 different pitchers, from a converted starter working long relief to whomever happened to be holding the lead that night. This statistic screams closer-by-committee.
The teams with a real closer problem look different. Their closer is getting the saves, but not inspiring much confidence. Those are the relievers worth a closer look.
The closers already blowing too many chances
Start with the closers converting the fewest of their chances. The league average is about 88 percent of save opportunities. The bottom of the list sits well under it.
Reliever | Team | Save Rate | ERA |
|---|---|---|---|
Hogan Harris | Athletics | 60% | 3.75 |
Lucas Erceg | Royals | 67% | 5.34 |
Seranthony Dominguez | White Sox | 71% | 4.45 |
Andres Munoz | Mariners | 74% | 5.08 |
The names in that table have lost the most leads in the ninth, too. Lucas Erceg and Andrés Muñoz have each blown five. Seranthony Domínguez has lost four opportunities. Kenley Jansen has quietly handed Detroit four blown ninth-inning leads of his own, a rough season a future Hall of Famer's reputation has mostly hidden.
The team picture splits along the same line. Washington's 22 blown saves are a committee with no answer. Seattle, Kansas City and Detroit lead baseball in blown saves that actually happened in the ninth, because each of them runs a closer who is failing at the job. The same stat is telling two completely different stories.
The closer whose ERA may be hiding trouble
Then there is Bryan Baker, the most interesting name precisely because nobody is talking about him. The Rays closer has converted 20 of 22 saves behind a glittering 1.78 ERA. Both numbers scream lockdown. Both are borrowed. His expected ERA is 2.62, nearly a full run higher, on an ordinary strikeout-to-walk rate for a man in his role. Baker has not been dominant. He has been efficient and a little lucky, and that is the profile that turns into a run of three-run ninth innings once the luck evens out, the kind no save total or surface ERA sees coming.
None of these arms is finished. Relievers are volatile by trade, and a hot fortnight rewrites a lot. But the closers most likely to cost their teams a game that matters this summer are not hard to name anymore: Erceg, Muñoz and Domínguez are already leaking, the stuff finally catching up to the results. Jansen is fading on reputation. And Baker is the one whose shine is on loan, the lockdown closer sitting one bad week away from reminding everyone that a 1.78 ERA was never the whole story.
Stats via Baseball Reference and Baseball Savant, save conversion rates calculated by the author
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