135 saves. That is how many saves Emmanuel Clase has notched since the beginning of the 2021 season. He led the league in saves 2 seasons in a row, and right now he's leading the AL again with 25. In that time, Kenley Jansen has 124 saves, Josh Hader has 115 saves, and Craig Kimbrel has 88 saves. The simple ability for a closing pitcher to get 40 or so saves in consecutive seasons seems to be so rare now that the closer designation seems more variable than ever, with more relief options than ever. And yet Clase has 135 saves in the past 4 seasons.
I've talked about this a lot, but many teams have a relief hierarchy that requires them to designate their highest-ranked relief pitcher as the team's closer, rather than someone who they know is a workhorse that can come into the 9th and make magic happen. Some of the best closers right now, people like Ryan Helsley, Clay Holmes, Kyle Finnegan, David Bednar, Jose Alvarado and Devin Williams, are just guys who are the best option to close, regardless of whether or not they are a good closer. There's also people like Josh Hader and Evan Phillips, who were given the ninth by default and then figured out they're actually pretty damned good at closing games. The inverse of that is people like Edwin Diaz and Hector Neris, people who have done well in the ninth but aren't really justifying being given the closing position at the moment.
There's only a few proven, perennial closing guys out there right now. It's really just Clase, Jordan Romano, Raisel Iglesias, Camilo Doval, Kimbrel and Jansen. Everybody else is working from gig to gig, even the good ones like Helsley and Phillips. Clase, though, has proven that if this is how good he can be during his prime, he'll likely be closing games for the rest of his life.
Even after last season, which had his ERA closer to 3, Clase still feels unhittable and hard to get past when he's up there. So far this season he has a 0.69 ERA, as he's only given up 3 earned runs in 39 innings. His hits-per-9-innings figure is a 4.8, which is pretty damned good for a closer. And the thing about Clase, which is honestly crazy, is that even if he does blow saves, which he does, he still piles up the most saves of anybody. Last season Clase blew TWELVE SAVES, which is a lot even for a bad closer, and he still led the majors with 44 saves. So far this year he's blown 3, and he's still leading the AL with 25. He's not perfect, and he can still have lousy days, but the Guardians rarely ever have to worry much when he's on.
And Clase is just another fantastic asset the Guardians are running wild with. They're seeing great seasons from Jose Ramirez, Steven Kwan, David Fry, Andres Gimenez, Josh Naylor and tons more. Now they've got this Jhonkensy Noel guy up, his power numbers have been pretty impressive so far. They're doing this without Shane Bieber, and without an overwhelmingly amazing rotation. This is the power of somebody like Stephen Vogt, and it's proving how good of a choice he was to manage this team after Francona retired.
The Guardians are lucky they're competitive, at powerful, at the moment they've come upon one of the best closers in the game. It doesn't happen like this very often.
Coming Tonight: The Orioles, let's be clear, won the Corbin Burnes trade. But this guy they gave up is no slouch.
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