MLB's Growing Crisis with Shutdown Closers

If not even Emmanuel Clase and Devin Williams can do it, then how the heck is anyone supposed to hold down a job as a closer in MLB?

This is a deliberately provocative question, but it's fair to ask it right now. At least one of those two is out of a job, after all, as the New York Yankees officially relieved Williams of his closing duties over the weekend.

It may only be temporary, but it's deserved after the erstwhile National League Rookie of the Year and All-Star posted an ugly 11.25 ERA through his first 10 appearances.

Meanwhile, in Cleveland, the Guardians are ostensibly sticking with Clase as their closer despite his own ugly ERA (6.57) through 13 appearances. Yet it seems that his training wheels have been reattached, as he had a recent outing that saw him pitch the eighth inning in lieu of the ninth.

In the meantime, that Clase and Williams have fallen from grace is not in dispute. And as elite closers go, they're merely the latest casualties.

2025 Is Turning into a Graveyard for Closers

Before we proceed, let's take a minute to appreciate Josh Hader and Kenley Jansen.

Hader's effectiveness has remained relatively consistent since his debut in 2017. He's pitched under his career ERA of 2.67 in six of his nine seasons, including with a 1.80 ERA for the Houston Astros so far in 2025. He got his 200th save on Opening Day.

As for Jansen, he's the active career leader with 453 saves and he's still going strong at 37 years old. He has six saves through eight scoreless appearances for the Los Angeles Angels.

Apart from them, though, this season has been a veritable bloodbath for closers.

Even Williams and Clase weren't embarrassed quite like two-time All-Star David Bednar, who got demoted to the minors by the Pittsburgh Pirates a couple of days into the season. The NL Central is also home to two other struggling closers in Ryan Helsley and Alexis Díaz, though, to call Díaz a closer is a kindness. The job isn't exactly his right now.

His older brother, Edwin Díaz, still doesn't resemble the guy who earned a nine-figure deal with the New York Mets in 2022. He has a modest 3.70 ERA in 66 appearances since last year's return from knee surgery, with more home runs (nine) than he allowed between 2020 and 2022 (eight).

Otherwise, Craig Kimbrel is slumming it in the Atlanta Braves' minor league system, where he can look up and see Raisel Iglesias with a 5.73 ERA and more homers than he allowed in all of 2024. Also in the NL East, Jordan Romano's comeback attempt has been hindered by a 12.19 ERA for the Philadelphia Phillies.

The individual stories of failure here contain many issues.

On Clase and Williams, the former's cutter has lost velocity and the latter's changeup is suffering from overexposure at a 54.1 percent usage clip. It's a lesson that, despite what we learned from Mariano Rivera and Trevor Hoffman, one great pitch does not necessarily guarantee lasting success as a closer.

The broader implication of all this, though, is that it's getting harder to be a closer. And there is some truth to that.

Closers Have Always Been Volatile. It's Getting Worse

Even if one assumes that any pitcher can close games, being an effective closer on a year-to-year basis has always been exceedingly difficult.

Here's how many pitchers have ever had one 20-save season compared to how many have had two or more:

• One 20-Save Season: 370
• Two 20-Save Seasons: 214
• Three 20-Save Seasons: 147
• Four 20-Save Seasons: 86
• Five-plus 20-Save Seasons: 61
• Ten-Plus 20-Save Seasons: 14

The obvious caveat is that the saves are a bit of a bogus stat, but they still offer the most direct path to prominence for relief pitchers. There are indeed better ways to evaluate relievers, but nothing allows guys to stick in people's memories quite like being the one who gets the last out.

In any case, diminishing returns like those make it no wonder that only nine relievers are in the Hall of Fame. One also wonders how much, if at all, those ranks will grow going forward.

Jansen may have a shot, but the rate at which individual closers have been racking up saves is falling. Major League Baseball reached its peak when 29 different pitchers recorded 20 or more saves in 2010. There have been no more than 23 such pitchers annually since 2016, and as few as 18 in 2022.

You'd think injuries were taking a toll, and you'd be right. Using data pulled from FanGraphs, relief pitchers spent a total of 16,481 days on the injured list in 2024. That was the most of any position.

If that is one reason for churn at the closer position, it is notable that Trevor Megill saved 21 games for the Milwaukee Brewers, while Williams spent the first half of 2024 on the IL. Another factor is that teams have fewer excuses to be patient with a struggling closer.

When closers had that all-time season in 2010, 22 qualified relievers averaged 95-plus mph on the fastball. In 2024, 88 did. More broadly, the swing-and-miss rate for relievers is up two percentage points since then.

It isn't much of an exaggeration to say that every modern reliever has closer-caliber stuff. In practice, this gives teams greater flexibility to consider alternative closing options when necessary.

In the case of the Yankees and Guardians, why stick with Williams and Clase when Luke Weaver and Cade Smith, respectively, are right there?

Enjoy the Best Closers in MLB While You Can

Even if closers are becoming more interchangeable, there remains one constant among the turnover: At any given time, some closers are simply better than the rest.

Though the list surely would have looked much different as recently as a couple weeks ago, here's how we'd rank the top five closers in MLB right now:

1. Mason Miller, Athletics
2. Robert Suarez, San Diego Padres
3. Andrés Muñoz, Seattle Mariners
4. Josh Hader, Houston Astros
5. Tanner Scott, Los Angeles Dodgers

Miller is an easy call for the top spot, and not solely because we're suckers for 104 mph fastballs. He had the best expected statistics of any pitcher in 2024, and his 2025 work consists of 22 strikeouts against six hits and two walks in 11 innings.

Suarez and Muñoz are each a perfect 11-for-11 in save opportunities in 2025, combining to allow one earned run in 28 innings. The former's fastball is one of the best pitches in MLB, and the latter can say the same of his slider.

For his part, Scott is something of a proto-Hader as a lefty who leans heavily on a deceptive, high-velocity fastball with a tight slider. He's allowed just 112 hits since the start of 2023, and this year he has yet to walk anyone through 15 innings.

Of course, given all we've talked about to this point, even bothering to make a list like this is either an act of courage or an act of stupidity. It is going to change. Probably drastically, and likely sooner rather than later.

Such is life with a job that many want and so few can actually keep.

Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference, FanGraphs and Baseball Savant.