The last of his kind? As Kenley Jansen chases 500 saves, no closers threaten behind him

New York Times

27-05-2025

Baseball players are often superstitious when discussing things they hope to accomplish. Hit streaks, no-hitters, record chases — they can all be taboo to mention until the feat is accomplished.
That is, unless you're Kenley Jansen, the four-time All-Star, World Series champion and potential Hall of Famer. Leaning back in his clubhouse chair before a game in San Diego earlier this month, Jansen spoke openly about what reaching 500 saves would mean to him.
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'It's going to take me all the way back to that first save, how special it is' the Los Angeles Angels closer said, reminiscing on a 1-0 win in 2010 against the Mets.
As meaningful as that milestone may be to Jansen, it also matters to the entire baseball world — because it may never be seen again. The 37-year-old closer became a Major League reliever 15 years ago when saves were baseball's most revered bullpen metric, and the game's best closers had near-lifetime appointments to the job. Mariano Rivera and Trevor Hoffman passed the torch, and now Jansen aspires to be the third closer to get to 500 saves — and potentially the last, as elite relievers are increasingly used in key situations beyond the ninth inning.
'I don't care what people say, especially with high leverage now (in the) sixth, seventh, eighth (innings),' Jansen said. 'The last three outs are still the toughest outs to get.'
Many might agree, but the reality is that baseball doesn't dogmatically prioritize those last three outs the way it used to, and this season has been a tough reminder that even the most accomplished relievers can struggle to successfully close games for more than a decade.
Guardians closer Emmanuel Clasé, MLB's best reliever over the past three seasons, has fallen significantly off his 2024 peak. Yankees reliever Devin Williams, a two-time Reliever of the Year, lost the closer job in April.
All-Stars Alexis Díaz and David Bednar have been optioned to Triple A. Phillies closer Jordan Romano has an ERA over seven, Braves closer Raisel Iglesias has an ERA near six, and Cubs closer Ryan Pressley, Giants closer Ryan Walker, Blue Jays closer Jeff Hoffman and A's closer Mason Miller each have ERAs over 5.00.
'The turnover is a lot faster now than it's ever been,' said Miller, an All-Star last season as a rookie. 'I think I saw in 2023, probably the best three closers in the NL were Bednar, [Camilo] Doval and Alexis Díaz. And two years later, all three of them have spent time in Triple A for varying lengths of time.
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'I think that's an example of how quickly each year, that the crop of closers is evolving. I don't think any of their stuff has gone down. It's just a matter of how fast people are figuring things out.'
Jansen has a 4.96 ERA. That's a run and a half worse than his 2024 ERA and nearly twice as high as his career mark, but Jansen is still pitching the ninth inning, and his 11 saves in 11 chances have pushed his career total to 458, the most of any active reliever and fourth most in baseball history. No other pitcher currently on a Major League roster is within 150 saves of the immortal No. 500.
'I think the tightrope act has just gotten tougher and tougher (with) the expectations of this role and the advent of the bullpens being so strong,' said Hoffman, a Hall of Fame closer himself.
Jansen came into this season needing 31 saves to tie Lee Smith for third most all-time. A pitcher 37 or older collected at least 31 saves 22 times in the decade from 2005 to 2014. Eleven pitchers did it during that 10-year window, and two others did it in 2004.
But it's happened only three times since 2015. Relievers simply don't accumulate saves the way they used to, and they rarely hold onto the job the way Jansen has done since 2012.
'I think I have a lot more left in my tank, and why not get that accomplishment?' Jansen said. 'I think it's a pretty awesome accomplishment. Only two guys have reached 500 before, so why not be the third one?'
Jansen is a direct descendant of the elite closer generation, which rose to prominence in an era when the game's top relief pitchers specialized in saving games, one inning at a time, and often did that job for more than a decade.
They evolved naturally from the multi-inning bullpen aces (Rollie Fingers, Goose Gossage, Bruce Sutter) to the true ninth-inning closers (Smith, Tom Henke, John Franco, Dennis Eckersley), so that, by the time Smith and Eckersley retired in the late 1990s, the archetype was set. The heyday of the closer was taking shape.
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By 2005, Rivera, Hoffman, Billy Wagner, Joe Nathan, Tom Gordon, Jonathan Papelbon and Francisco Rodríguez were all active at the same time. That's seven of the top 13 relief pitchers of all-time — as measured by the rJAWS formula on Baseball Reference — pitching during the same season. And there were eight other relievers in 2005 (Troy Percival, Fernando Rodney, Huston Street, Francisco Cordero, Roberto Hernández, José Mesa, Todd Jones and 44-year-old Franco) who eventually would retire in the top 20 in career saves.
There were enough active ninth-inning mainstays for half the teams in baseball to have one. That was the state of closers two decades ago.
'It's been a hard role. It's always been a finite (assignment),' Hoffman said. 'You can't put up with not doing your job, because it costs games. You have the win on the line, and it's pretty devastating to a team. Consistency is such a big deal in this role, and comfortability comes with that.'
But as the generation of peak closers began to retire, the generation that followed was neither as large nor as prolific. As starter workload diminished, managers went to their bullpens earlier, and teams began to value non-closers.
Elite arms were not automatically thrust into the ninth inning. Expectations also changed. Velocity spiked, injuries mounted and longevity became more fleeting.
'Closers then were used differently than they are now,' said Reds closer Emilio Pagán, who inherited the role after the former All-Star Díaz faltered this season. 'Now you can have a closer come in and throw in a non-save situation (more) than you would back then. The usage is a little bit different.'
Hoffman and Wagner retired in 2010, the same year Jansen, Aroldis Chapman and Craig Kimbrel made their debuts. The torch was passed, but those three now stand as perhaps the last of the old guard. Jansen and Kimbrel are fourth and fifth in career saves, but Kimbrel is now in the minors. Chapman is 15th.
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Next on the active saves list is Edwin Díaz, who's 31 years old, has been an All-Star twice, and is not even halfway to 500. He has only one season of more than 32 saves. (For comparison: Mesa, Nathan, John Wetteland and Robb Nen each had four seasons of at least 40 saves. Hoffman and Rivera had nine.)
In this new era, Josh Hader — also 31 and this generation's pillar of bullpen consistency — has been an All-Star five times but has never saved more 36 games and has led the league in saves only once. Clase, 27, who averaged 44 saves the past three seasons, has been far less dominant this season. He's still saving games (10), but his unusually high hit rate and 4.50 ERA — already twice as many earned runs as he allowed all of last season — are evidence that bullpen dominance is difficult to maintain, even for the game's best relievers.
'It's almost impossible,' Guardians manager Steven Vogt said. 'That just proves that the ones who have done it for a really long time, how good they are. You're not inventing new pitches. You're not fooling people in different ways. You're getting them out the same way you get them out every time. Maybe mixing up the sequencing a little bit, but major league hitters are really good.'
Closers who maintain an elite level for even four or five seasons have become rare. Of the 11 closers who were All-Stars in 2021, only two are still closing games. Of the six who were NL All-Stars just two years ago, only Hader is still regularly pitching the ninth while three have been sent to the minor leagues.
Jansen was an All-Star in 2023. He ranked 11th in Win Probability Added and had a strong 3.29 ERA with solid batted ball data in 2024. Little of that performance has carried over to this age-37 season which, again, is not unusual in today's game.
'It's what they put their bodies through,' Vogt said. 'You throw 70 to 80 times a year, it's gonna take a toll.'
One veteran Major League executive, granted anonymity for his candor, offered four factors causing the generational change at closer: One, a better understanding of leverage has led teams to use elite relievers in non-save situations. Two, as the leverage logic has trickled into player development, elite relievers no longer reach the Major Leagues expecting (or demanding) to close. Three, the save statistic is no longer seen as the most important relief pitcher metric (though it still carries weight in arbitration). And four, potentially dominant closers are being stretched out as starters or multi-inning relievers.
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'That all said,' the executive said, 'the ninth inning and many save situations are still high-leverage, and there still is something to getting those last three outs, in my opinion! But ideally you have multiple pitchers who can do it effectively. And the biggest thing is pitching your best pitchers when it matters most.'
What separates an elite closer from an elite closer who can sustain his performance over many years?
'A unicorn pitch,' said veteran catcher Travis d'Arnaud, who has been teammates with Jansen on three clubs, and struck out swinging against Jansen to end his 400th save in 2023.' I think if you look at the 1-2 saves leaders of all time, they both had a unicorn pitch.'
With Rivera, it was his cutter. With Hoffman, it was a changeup. Rodríguez, too, had an elite changeup. Sutter pioneered the split-finger. Eckersley had his slider. Wagner and Chapman high-octane, left-handed fastballs. Jansen's go-to is his signature cutter.
'I think that pitch alone is going to get him to 500 saves,' d'Arnaud said.
It may need to. In many ways 42 saves is nothing, at least relative to the 458 saves it took to reach this point. But Jansen is working against many factors.
Age is one. He'll turn 38 at the end of the season. 'Father Time is real,' Hoffman said. 'You can't run away from it.'
Another is opportunities. He recently went 23 days with just one save, simply because his struggling team couldn't get him a chance.
Jansen's peripheral numbers also create some concern. While he is 11-for-11 on save chances this season, his average exit velocity allowed is 94.2 miles per hour, in the bottom one percent of all pitchers, and far worse than his career average of 86.6 mph. His strikeout rate is just 22.5 percent, compared to 33.2 percent for his career.
The sample size is just 16 1/3 innings. But even if he's been relatively effective, he has not been dominant. And even if Jansen completed saves at the pace he has the last three seasons, he might not reach 500 until 2027 at the earliest. The 500 milestone is a goal, and a realistic one. But not a given.
Hoffman looks at closers through their generations. He and Rivera were their own generation. Jansen, Kimbrel and Chapman came after. He name-dropped Miller, Cardinals closer Ryan Helsley and Hader as being part of the next wave. All are elite, hard throwers, whose pure stuff either matches or exceeds any of their Hall of Fame predecessors. Yet none are on anything resembling the trajectory to reach 500.
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So that leaves Jansen as arguably the last, best hope to hit the milestone.
'Once we're done playing, we'll think about how beautiful it was,' Jansen said. 'But I'm not in that moment. I'm in that moment to grind. I'm hungry, I'm still hungry, and I want to accomplish more.'
With contributions from The Athletic's Zack Meisel and C. Trent Rosecrans.