Best righty relievers since 2020
Forget last October; Emmanuel Clase is the clear leader here
Emmanuel Clase suffered a rocky American League Championship Series last October.
The relief pitcher for the Cleveland Guardians surrendered four runs in just 2.1 innings of work. He was saddled with the loss in Game Four, setting the stage for the New York Yankees to clinch the pennant the following day.
Forget that, if you can. Clase’s total body of work has been outstanding, establishing him as baseball’s best righthanded reliever.
My rankings encompass all righties who made at least 150 relief appearances between 2020 and 2024. They’re sorted according to overall base value (OBV), which compares a given pitcher’s performance with the big-league average.
Clase worked 289.1 regular-season innings for Cleveland over the five-year span. He allowed opposing batters to reach 351 bases through hits, walks, hit batters, stolen bases, and sacrifices. A typical pitcher with the same workload would have yielded 610 bases.
Clase’s total was 259 bases better than average, giving him an OBV of plus-259. No other righty bullpen specialist came within 95 bases of that total.
The Cleveland reliever also topped this category in two traditional measures of pitching excellence. He accumulated the lowest earned run average (1.62) and most saves (157) of any righthanded reliever.
The runners-up in OBV were Raisel Iglesias at plus-162 and Devin Williams at plus-147. Iglesias pitched for the Cincinnati Reds, Los Angeles Angels, and Atlanta Braves during the 2020-2024 period. Williams worked solely for the Milwaukee Brewers, though he was recently traded to the Yankees.
Scroll down to see the the half-decade’s top 10 righthanded relief pitchers. Each is followed by parenthetical stats for 2020-2024 — innings pitched, saves, and earned run average — capped by his overall base value.
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Top 10 righthanded relief pitchers (2020-2024)
1. Emmanuel Clase (IP 289.1, SV 157, ERA 1.62) — OBV +259
2. Raisel Iglesias (IP 280.0, SV 126, ERA 2.44) — OBV +162
3. Devin Williams (IP 222.0, SV 68, ERA 1.70) — OBV +147
4. Clay Holmes (IP 261.0, SV 74, ERA 3.03) — OBV +120
5. Ryan Helsley (IP 227.0, SV 84, ERA 2.58) — OBV +119
6. Ryan Pressly (IP 255.1, SV 106, ERA 3.10) — OBV +116
7. Evan Phillips (IP 206.2, SV 45, ERA 2.48) — OBV +115
8. Tyler Rogers (IP 329.0, SV 19, ERA 3.04) — OBV +108
9. Brusdar Graterol (IP 181.0, SV 11, ERA 2.69) — OBV +99
10. Dylan Floro (IP 267.1, SV 32, ERA 3.50) — OBV +91
10. Chris Martin (IP 213.0, SV 9, ERA 2.66) — OBV +91