2025 Positional Power Rankings: Bullpen (No. 16-30)

San Diego lost their top guy (Tanner Scott) in free agency to the Dodgers, but what remains is a fearsome unit, packed with flamethrowers and spin wizards. Robert Suarez doesn’t throw a breaking ball, an unusual look for a closer. But his four-seamer is generally enough to get the job done, running it up to 101 mph and averaging over 18 inches of induced vertical break. Jason Adam has been one of the best relievers of the last three years, riding the crazy movement on all three of his pitches to the third-best ERA among all pitchers who have racked up at least 150 innings since 2022.

But neither of those guys has the ceiling of Jeremiah Estrada, whose fastball is close to the very best in the sport. Estrada extends way down the mound but hikes his arm to an over-the-top release point; the result is a roughly league-average release height with an ungodly amount of backspin, giving the 97-mph pitch nearly 20 inches of induced vertical break with occasional cut and a devastatingly flat approach angle. He pairs that with a 90-mph slider and something he calls the “chitter,” a changeup/splitter thing that batters swung through over half the time. It’s possible he jumps over both Suarez and Adam by the end of the season.

Adrian Morejon is a luxury in the middle innings. Yuki Matsui is a platoon-neutral lefty, attacking with splitters or sliders depending on the handedness of the hitter. But my favorite guy in this bullpen is Alek Jacob, who has a fastball that tops out in the mid-80s. He throws from a true sidearm release, allowing him to generate absurd arm-side movement on his changeup and a bizarre rising sweeper that moves to the glove side. Weird guys rule, and Jacob is certainly a weird guy.

This is the fat part of the distribution, and there really isn’t much of a difference between no. 10 and no. 20 on this list. Even so, this ranking feels a little too generous. The projections are still pretty optimistic about closer David Bednar, basically splitting the difference between his excellent 2023 and his disastrous 2024. I’m not as confident. His command fell off a cliff last season; this spring, he’s lost nearly two inches of ride on his fastball, and his splitter velocity is down about two ticks. Relievers burn bright and fast; I may be wrong, but this looks to me like the throes of a decline phase.

The setup options are solid but uninspiring. Caleb Ferguson struck out a bunch of guys last year, but his pitch mix is a little too junkballery for him to be trusted as a shutdown high-leverage reliever. (His four-seamer is sitting 92.5 mph this spring and he’s throwing it a third of the time.) Colin Holderman doesn’t really have anything to throw to lefties, so instead he just pitches around them. (He walked 16.3% of lefties he saw in 2024.) Dennis Santana was genuinely excellent after the Pirates scooped him up on waivers in June of last year, and his arsenal blends together beautifully, but there isn’t a clear plus pitch in the mix. Carmen Mlodzinski sits 96 with his heater, but his pitches are clustered pretty tightly on a movement plot, meaning he’s more likely to generate weak contact than punch somebody out.

The Pirates have a ton of pitching depth in the high minors, but it doesn’t seem like they’re ready to convert guys like Braxton Ashcraft to relief roles just yet, especially after seeing Jared Jones run into elbow problems late in the spring. Justin Lawrence seems like a guy who could jump into a prominent role — his high-powered side-arm arsenal didn’t play great in Colorado, but the sweeper is liable to be sweeping in more neutral environmental conditions. Kyle Nicolas throws absolute gas but struggles to throw the ball in the strike zone. Joey Wentz can be trusted to cover bulk innings after a starter gets blown up early, and can perhaps even handle lefties in high-leverage situations. Unless some of those promising prospects get rushed to the big leagues to handle leverage opportunities, this feels like a unit destined to finish in the bottom five or so in reliever FIP.

Pitching chaos is back. The entire cast of characters who powered the Tigers’ improbable 2024 playoff run has returned. There isn’t likely to be one surefire closer in this crop, though Beau Brieske seems ready to take on even more high-leverage opportunities, while Jason Foley and his turbo sinker may take a step back. No longer tasked with opening games, Tyler Holton seems likely to shift into something like a fireman role, leveraging his five-pitch mix to tackle hitters from both sides of the plate. Will Vest still throws gas and complements his four-seam/slider combo with a sinker to righties and a changeup to lefties.

There are a couple new series regulars in this group. Tommy Kahnle and his extreme commitment to the changeup bit will absorb some innings and offer some strikeout upside. John Brebbia is here to run surprisingly high strikeout rates and give up maybe a few too many homers.

If AJ Hinch has it his way, these relievers will work much less than they did in the latter half of the 2024 season. In the starting pitching department, the Tigers brought back Jack Flaherty and signed Alex Cobb; Jackson Jobe won a job in the rotation out of spring training and flashed some of the best stuff of any pitcher, full stop. (As the loser of the rotation competition, Kenta Maeda will be relegated to a long relief role.) Barring any significant injuries, theirs will be a pretty conventional five-man rotation setup, limiting the need for their bullpen to cover the bulk of regular season innings.

Toronto swapped out Jordan Romano for Jeff Hoffman at the back of this bullpen, a move that the projections wholeheartedly support. Hoffman was one of 2024’s best relievers in a high-leverage role for the Phillies, running a 33.6% K-rate while also keeping both walks and homers in check. Both of Hoffman’s primary pitches move in unexpected fashion — the fastball gets plus carry and a bunch of horizontal movement, while the slider gets surprising depth for a pitch that averages 87 mph. He also mixes in a sinker to righties and a splitter to lefties, giving him a true four-pitch mix, somewhat uncommon for a closer these days.

Hoffman isn’t the only high-leverage reliever in Toronto with an uncommonly large arsenal. Yimi García returned to the Blue Jays on a two-year deal after a brief sojourn to Seattle. García is one of my personal favorites. He throws six pitches, including a fastball that he can dial up to 99 mph with a super-flat approach angle. His sweeper gets crazy lift, averaging eight inches of induced vertical break. García also mixes in a changeup and a hard sinker that resembles some of the splinkers popping up across major league bullpens. These two form as good of a back of the bullpen as any team could ask for.

I’m less inspired by the depth options. Chad Green will be doing his Chad Green thing, throwing a ton of high-vert fastballs at the top of the zone. Tommy Nance throws a huge curveball, breaking big in both planes. Nick Sandlin slings side-arm sweepers and splitters. Yariel Rodríguez’s stuff might tick up in a bullpen role, though the Blue Jays will likely keep him stretched out as more of a bulk guy. Brendon Little features a sharp curveball but doesn’t really have anything to throw at the top of the strike zone. Zach Pop is a super boring sinker-slider guy. But you know who isn’t boring? Mason Fluharty.

Fluharty averages 90 mph on his fastball, which is, traditionally, a problem. He also doesn’t have a single pitch that moves to his arm side. His fastball gets about three inches of glove-side movement. He also throws a huge sweeper. That’s it! He’s doing well in camp and I support his promotion to the major leagues, though, sadly, that’s looking less likely after the Jays moved fellow soft-tossing lefty Richard Lovelady onto the 40-man roster. Even if Fluharty were to make the major league roster, this team, like many in this range of the depth charts, might struggle to hold leads in the middle innings.

Porter Hodge hive assemble! It feels like it’s only a matter of time before Hodge takes the top job from Ryan Pressly. Hodge throws a lethal fastball, extending way down the mound (7.3 feet of extension) and generating glove-side movement from a standard three-quarters arm slot. The extreme supination tendencies that produce his cut-ride fastball also allow for the crazy break he gets on his sweeper, which is averaging nearly 19 inches of horizontal break this spring. It’s just two pitches, but it’s two plus-plus pitches, and assuming he can maintain even average command, he’s going to eat hitters alive this season.

Pressly, on the other hand, is in the gentle decline phase of his career. He’s still a decent option, but his fastball — while still maintaining its distinct shape — sat below 93 mph in his one appearance in Tokyo, a tough place to live as a closer even with his two filthy breaking balls. After years of posting strikeout rates in the 30s, that mark inched uncomfortably close to the league average in 2024, mirroring his declining fastball velocity.

If the top of the Cubs’ bullpen looks a little shaky, the middle innings look pretty secure. The Cubs benefited from the Dodgers’ roster crunch, scooping up a perfectly cromulent Ryan Brasier for peanuts. Julian Merryweather has reportedly recovered his velocity, and if he’s back up to 98 mph, he’s likely to be super effective — if he can manage to actually stay healthy, that is. Nate Pearson looks like a pretty standard power fastball/slider guy. Caleb Thielbar will neutralize lefties with his two breaking ball attack.

The list could go on. There’s a nice group of pretty good pitchers in the Cubs system at the moment, even in Triple-A, where a guy like Daniel Palencia — who averages 100 mph on his fastball! — is set to start the year due to his optionality.

Do you have a minute to learn about my lord and savior, José Quijada? If there is one theme to this installment of the positional power rankings, it is that I love weird pitchers, and Quijada ranks among the weirdest. He has always leaned heavily on his fastball, but he took it to a new level in 2024: He threw his four-seam fastball 94.5% of the time, albeit over just 19.1 innings. Nobody else came within 10 percentage points of using a single pitch that frequently. What deepens this mystery is that, at first glance, the pitch is nothing special. Quijada sat 94, and his fastball’s vertical movement was pretty standard. But the movement plots don’t capture the funk in Quijada’s delivery, which almost certainly helps the pitch play up. And Quijada is relentless about locating his heater at or near the top of the strike zone, which, combined with his low release height, gives the pitch a consistently tricky approach angle. That’s the best explanation I can come up with for how a 94-mph fastball thrown nearly every single time can still get whiffs on a third of swings.

Speaking of using one pitch, Kenley Jansen, who is second in those single pitch usage rankings with his crazy vert-y cutter, will close games out for this team. The Angels and Jansen have something good here. Jansen gets to keep on marching toward his 500th career save, while the Angels gain a slightly dull tip of their bullpen spear. Of course, they had a perfectly good closer option on staff in Ben Joyce, the major league leader in fastball velocity. In part because of that fastball’s mediocre shape, Joyce got fewer whiffs than you might expect from a guy who averages 102 mph with his heater. But that all might be changing — this spring, Joyce’s most-used pitch is a mind-melting 94 mph splinker/changeup/depth-y arm-side demon pitch, and the strikeouts are flowing.

Other flamethrowers populate the B side of this reliever unit. Ryan Zeferjahn came over from Boston in the Luis García deadline deal and averages 97 with his heater; his best pitch is a 90-mph “cutter” with excellent glove-side break for that velo. Michael Petersen is 6-foot-7 and also averaged 97 with great carry on his four seam, though last year’s results were underwhelming. Brock Burke torches righties but doesn’t really have a weapon to attack same-handed hitters. Michael Darrell-Hicks is a former undrafted free agent who is lighting up stuff models; he delivered in a small Triple-A sample. Robert Stephenson should be back at some point. The recently acquired Ian Anderson will likely slot in as a long reliever for now; he’s out of options, and it’s not clear if he’ll crack the rotation.

Ryan Helsley is one of the best relievers in the sport. A fastball averaging 100 mph with cut-ride movement? That’s enough to dominate, even with classically erratic reliever command. Batters whiff over half the time they swing at his slider, which he throws even more frequently than the fastball. Great closer!

The rest of this bullpen… yeesh. St. Louis made a move toward shoring up this unit by signing Phil Maton in mid-March, but his 0.0 WAR projection didn’t move the needle much as far as these Depth Charts are concerned.

Still, there are the outlines of some compelling depth here. JoJo Romero was shockingly effective for stretches of last season, slinging sweepers from the left side. Ryan Fernandez qualifies as a Rule 5 success after posting 3.35 FIP in his rookie campaign. John King won’t strike anyone out, but his depth-y sinker and funky delivery ought to limit the damage on balls in play. Chris Roycroft is my personal favorite of this group — he throws a power sinker with a viciously steep approach angle. In the offseason, he added a gyro-slider that, at 88 mph with four inches of glove-side break, is grading well in the stuff models and gives him a swing-and-miss pitch against right-handed hitters.

Where are the breakout candidates? Gordon Graceffo’s curveball is fun, a true 12-6 bender. If Matthew Liberatore’s latest run as a starter goes sideways, he’ll have a home as a top arm in this relief corps. And if Tekoah Roby makes a move to the bullpen, which Eric Longenhagen thinks is a strong possibility, he could quickly become a high-quality leverage guy. Otherwise, who knows? It doesn’t seem like the Cardinals really want to win this year anyway.

Welcome to the funk factory. Ryan Walker strides toward third base and then whips his entire body toward the plate to deliver his lethal sinker/sweeper combination. Tyler Rogers scrapes his knuckles against the ground and throws a rising slider. Sean Hjelle (6-foot-11) is the tallest pitcher in baseball history. Erik Miller features the largest gap in arm angle between his two primary pitches of any pitcher in the game. (For the fastball, he hikes it up to an overhand slot; for the changeup, he drops low like a sidearmer.)

These four, plus Camilo Doval, who is back to slinging 100 mph wrong-way cutters, should be good enough to keep this bullpen respectable. The depth behind those top guys, as is true of many of the bullpens in this ranking range, leaves something to be desired. Landen Roupp would be a killer in one-inning bursts, but the Giants don’t seem quite ready to give up on his starting potential; he is battling with Hayden Birdsong for a rotation spot, and he’ll make for good rotation depth, but we project him to begin the year in the bullpen. Joel Peguero throws 100 mph with a filthy slider and still might not make this team.

There’s just no way the Rays finish as a bottom-tier bullpen. Every single potential member of this reliever corp — and they’re rolling so deep that the guy who led their bullpen in innings last year and finished with a 2.67 ERA (Kevin Kelly) might start the year in Triple-A — features some sort of outlier trait. There are guys with high-velocity fastballs that have scale-breaking carry, speedy changeups with crazy depth, super-low release heights, Joe Boyles. Truly, every single one of these pitchers stands out in some way. There’s no generic 95 mph fastball arm with decent sliders in this bullpen — this is a freak show (complimentary).

Edwin Uceta throws from four-and-a-half feet off the ground. Mason Montgomery is tossing 98-mph heaters from the left side with 20 inches of induced vertical break. Hunter Bigge’s fastball mirrors Montgomery’s from the right side. Eric Orze, Alex Faedo, and Mason Englert all throw changeups that frequently notch negative induced vertical break numbers at plus velocity. Joey Gerber throws a fastball with elite vertical approach angle. Manuel Rodríguez is the most anonymous guy throwing 98 in the league. Jacob Waguespack had the most vertical arm slot in the majors last season. I could keep going!

I haven’t even mentioned their closer, Pete Fairbanks, who is a weirdo in his own right. The big man struggles with command, but his stuff is premium; he throws cut-ride fastballs from the moon and wields one of the nastiest “death balls” in existence. That said, there might be some cause for concern. He lost nearly two ticks off his fastball in 2024, and perhaps as a result, his strikeout rate dipped 14 percentage points. If he isn’t able to rescue his form, there will be plenty of options angling to hoover up the highest leverage opportunities.

By the projections, this bullpen is almost literally a one-man show. Mason Miller is projected for 2 WAR; all of the other relievers combined project for -0.1 WAR. You don’t need any fancy math to understand Miller’s dominance. His fastball averages 101 mph. He throws it nearly two-thirds of the time. What else do you need to know?

The rest of the bullpen features intriguing-but-flawed arms. Michel Otañez is my favorite of the bunch. He throws absolute gas from a lowish release height; Stuff+ gave his fastball the same grade as Mason Miller’s, which is saying something. His slider doesn’t have standout break characteristics, but it performed incredibly well regardless, notching whiffs on over half of batters’ swings. As you might assume because you’ve probably never heard the name Michel Otañez, he does have one significant flaw, and that is his command. He walked nearly 14% of the hitters he faced in 2024, which was actually an improvement over his minor league numbers; his walk rate pushed 20% in 2022 and was a touch over 16% in 2023. If Otañez can figure out where the ball is going, his ceiling is up there with Miller’s. Unfortunately, his right shoulder is impinged, so he’ll start the year on the IL.

I wrote at length about setup guy José Leclerc here, so check the hyperlink if you want more. Justin Sterner might be a guy to keep an eye on; his velo is up this spring, and his funky delivery makes his fastball play above its already excellent grade. Grant Holman pitched in the Little League World Series and now throws a nasty changeup as an adult. Tyler Ferguson crushed righties with his hard sweeper, but he doesn’t have an arm-side out-pitch, so lefties were all over him. TJ McFarland can pick up the lefty slack but is probably best shielded from right-handed hitters. In any case, the depth here is close to the worst in baseball — an injury to Miller might be devastating to a team with sneaky ambitions to compete this season.

I’d argue these projections are too low for one main reason: There is just no way Graham Ashcraft is a replacement-level reliever. I understand why the projections think this is the case — he’s pushing a career ERA of 5.00. But now that the Reds have finally committed to Ashcraft’s inevitable destiny as a flame-throwing high-leverage reliever, everything will change. His career splits by times-through-the-order are befitting of a guy with two nasty pitches and little else: 3.38 ERA first time through, 5.06 ERA second time, 6.46 ERA third time. Add a couple ticks to that ridiculous cutter, shrink the arsenal, and he’ll immediately turn into a monster.

Meanwhile, the Reds have a couple of guys with fascinating outlier traits. Alexis Díaz is one of the weirder pitchers in baseball, extending 7.7 feet off the mound from a 6-foot-2 frame. That’s the longest extension in the league from an average-ish height. It might be responsible for his career-long command issues, but it also produces one of the flattest fastballs in existence. Unfortunately, Díaz’s hamstring is barking, so he’ll start the year on the injured list.

Brent Suter is also very weird. His “four-seam” fastball averages 86 mph and averages about four inches of cut. (It’s a cutter.) He also threw a changeup that graded out as the best changeup in baseball by StuffPro last season. I can’t be sure, but I think that’s because it has such a bizarre relationship to his primary fastball. I don’t think there’s another changeup that has the same amount of vertical movement as the pitcher’s primary fastball but also a 12-inch difference in horizontal break.

Taylor Rogers, Emilio Pagán, Sam Moll and Scott Barlow will deliver predictable stability. Tony Santillan, on the other hand, offers huge upside if he can keep locating his nasty stuff in the strike zone. Luis Mey throws 100-mph sinkers and walked every fifth batter last season (roughly). Zach Maxwell (Big Sugar) and Chase Petty both could produce at high levels if given the chance.

You’ve gotta hand it to the Bendix administration: Miami has managed to cobble together an entire bullpen almost entirely out of waiver claims. The two-headed squadron of Calvin Faucher and Jesus Tinoco will battle for save chances. Both right-handers posted respectable seasons — a 3.19 ERA for Faucher, a 3.32 ERA for Tinoco — over medium-sized samples. Tinoco, in particular, excelled after the Marlins claimed him from the Cubs in July, striking out over 30% of the hitters he faced even while using a sinker as his primary fastball. Faucher somehow managed to go the entire regular season without allowing a home run, a feat his teammate Declan Cronin (who will start the year on the IL) also nearly managed. Given Faucher’s so-so track record of limiting damage and his lack of contact-suppressing pitch types, that’s not something that is likely to persist. (Exhibit A: He’s allowed two home runs in spring training.)

I am pretty intrigued by Lake Bachar, another recent waiver claim who made his major league debut last September at age 29. His fastball sits 95 but gets a surprising amount of ride given his low slot. He pairs that plus fastball with a mix of depth-y changeups and bendy sweepers and — if the spring training data is to be believed — a brand new gyro slider. This almost looks like a pretty good mid-rotation starting pitcher mix, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s one of the Marlins’ better relievers. Also he was a punter in college — fun!

Ronny Henriquez has nasty stuff; I’m not sure why the results aren’t better. Josh Ekness might be on the fast track if he can sustain his results in the high minors for a couple of months. Recently converted to bullpen life, Anthony Veneziano should be a solid option against lefties in high-leverage scenarios. Anthony Bender throws sinkers and sweepers with massive horizontal break, scoring yet another win for the nominative determinism community.

There were a few months of suspense after a mildly surprising non-tender decision, but Kyle Finnegan and the Nationals found their way back to each other. He’ll occupy the premium position in this uninspiring crop of relievers, throwing a ton of high-velocity fastballs with so-so shape and likely allowing his typical bushel of hard contact.

There are some other veterans backing up Finnegan. There’s Jorge López, inked for a modest $3 million and solidly in the veteran journeyman phase of his career. Lucas Sims signed for the same amount of cash and offers more upside than López, as he apparently hit a career high velo in a bullpen he threw just prior to landing in Washington. Derek Law is 34 years old, has appeared in every non-pandemic season since 2016, and is somehow still arb-eligible, so he’s around for another year after throwing 90 innings in 2024. And Colin Poche is in camp on a minor league deal, offering his standard diet of high-carry four-seamers from an extreme over-the-top release. These somewhat familiar faces, alongside Finnegan, will at the very least provide some stability, if not any particular excitement.

Jose A. Ferrer feels like the guy who might potentially break out of the morass of mediocrity. Even with a depth-y sinker shape, 98 mph from the left side will play. The lack of a hoppy heater means he may never rack up major whiffs, but a sinker with that depth and velocity will be a contact-quality killer against batters from both sides of the plate. And an improved slider, which he reportedly worked on over the offseason, could unlock another level of bat-missing. I’ll also shout out Orlando Ribalta, who stands 6-foot-7 and is throwing an excellent fastball this spring, up 1.5 mph over his Triple-A marks. Ribalta’s command has been a little wonky in the minors, but the stuff is major league quality, especially if he sustains this velo bump.

Hear me out: The Rockies have some guys! Seth Halvorsen is the main guy. His fastball shape isn’t amazing, but he sits 100 with nearly seven feet of extension, which helps. And he throws ridiculous out-pitches — a firm gyro slider and a knee buckling splitter, both of which travel at 89 mph. He’s only thrown 12 major league innings, but on the stuff alone, Halvorsen looks elite — especially when the pitches aren’t thrown in the movement-suppressing Denver air.

Angel Chivilli is my personal favorite. Was he good last year? Not particularly. But, of all the pitches in baseball — All the pitches in baseball! Every single one! (minimum 50 pitches thrown) — Chivilli’s changeup ranked first in swinging strike rate. There’s nothing about it that stands out from a movement perspective. It’s thrown pretty hard — 88 mph is firm for a changeup — but it doesn’t get crazy outlier vertical drop. Maybe it tunnels well with the fastball? I’m sort of at a loss. If anyone can unlock the mystery of Angel Chivilli’s changeup, please contact me at your earliest convenience.

What else? Victor Vodnik throws super hard. Jake Bird has two good breaking balls. Eric Longenhagen is high on Luis Peralta, who throws a flat approach angle fastball with plus velocity from the left side. But the projections don’t see anyone finishing with an ERA below 4.00. So maybe they don’t have that many guys.

Tyler Kinley is pencilled in at closer. I don’t have much to say about Tyler Kinley. Halvorsen should take his job.

Elsewhere on the White Sox roster, you can sort of squint and see the outlines of a respectable team. But the bullpen is where things start to fall apart.

When I first drafted this blurb, RosterResource had the closer position as a three-way split; Justin Anderson sat at the top of the list. I’d like to think I know a lot of pitchers. When I try to picture “Justin Anderson” in my mind’s eye, I draw a blank. I do not think I know this Justin Anderson, who went a half-decade without appearing in the major leagues. When he resurfaced last season, he was basically the same pitcher who had kicked around Triple-A for the last five years. Sure, he was throwing his fastball a tick harder, and he added a cutter that he occasionally threw to lefties, but the basic structure was the same: An excellent slider he throws roughly half the time, and almost no command to speak of. The heavy slider reliance means he’s effectively a ROOGY, unable to reliably retire left-handed hitters.

In the intervening weeks, Mike Clevinger, who is projected for a 4.67 FIP and -0.2 WAR, moved into the presumptive closer position. The less said about Mike Clevinger, the better.

Penn Murfee’s sweeper is a beauty. Fraser Ellard throws hard from the left side and gets pretty nice depth on his slider. Tyler Gilbert can limit hard contact against lefties. James Karinchak is around, for some reason. There are some bright spots, namely Shane Smith if he doesn’t crack the rotation. But this is quite clearly the worst bullpen in baseball.