New York Yankees Have Most Dominant Bullpen in Baseball

There’s a big reason behind the dominance of New York’s relievers.

Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports

The New York Yankees have, by far, the best bullpen in the Major Leagues.

Sorted by team bullpen ERA, New York’s relief pitchers have a combined ERA of 2.78. The Cleveland Guardians, who have the second lowest, have a bullpen ERA of 3.04, making the Bronx Bombers the only bullpen with an ERA below three.

It’s surprising to see the Yankees that far ahead of the pack, because some relievers have had stretches of ineffectiveness and ill-timed struggles. This includes Clay Holmes, the team leader in saves, who notably struggled to start the season.

The answer to the bullpen’s dominance? They don’t have a designated closer anymore. Instead, manager Aaron Boone uses a combination of Holmes, Wandy Peralta, and Michael King to close games, and is willing to mix and match each reliever in different high-leverage situations.

New York has seven different players with at least one save: Holmes, Peralta, King, Deivi Garcia, Ian Hamilton, Ron Marinaccio, and Ryan Weber. Granted, Garcia is currently back in the minors, and Hamilton and Weber are both on the Injured List. Regardless, the Yankees have three different closers to go to, while Tommy Kahnle, who has recently returned from injury, looks to form a strong setup man tandem with Marinaccio.

The emergence of Peralta has been enormous for the Yankee bullpen; ever since the Yankees traded for him in 2021, he’s been an excellent high-leverage reliever who has come in to save games in case the regular closer would falter. In 2023, however, Boone decided to start giving Peralta full save opportunities in the ninth inning, and so far it has paid dividends. Peralta has picked up four saves, all in the last 15 games, and continues to be a fresh arm to save another pitcher’s bacon in tough situations.

King has also made for a great closing option, with three saves and the stamina to go multiple innings. There aren’t many closers who have the endurance to pitch multiple innings, even in more modern times; back in the 1970s and early to mid 1980s, closers such as Rollie Fingers and Goose Gossage excelled at getting nine outs to lock down saves. Since the late 1980s, most teams use closers for just the ninth inning, although Yankees legend Mariano Rivera would sometimes come in to get more than three outs or even get six outs.

King’s endurance gives the Yankees an extremely rare luxury, and although this often means he needs more days of rest compared to other relievers, it also allows Peralta and Holmes to rest and keep them fresh for the coming days.

Finally, the “closer by committee” approach has significantly benefited Holmes. After struggling in the second half of 2022 and early 2023, Boone decided to deploy Holmes in situations outside of the ninth inning, which allowed the righty to readjust his pitching mechanics and build his confidence back up.

Since he began sharing closer duties, Holmes has been brilliant; just like Peralta, he has greatly excelled at coming into high-leverage situations and getting key outs, which has also kept him and his pitching mechanics fresh for save situations. Although he still tends to walk batters, it’s no longer from him struggling with his pitch release, and instead comes from trying to get batters to chase outside the strike zone. This has also increased his strikeout rate; Holmes already has 34 strikeouts in 29 games, compared to 65 last year in 62 games.

Ultimately, the approach to share closer duties has been a boon for the Yankees, because they have so many talented relievers who are capable of closing out games. This kind of approach isn’t commonly done in the majors today; last season, the Houston Astros used their bullpen to dominate the postseason, but still used Ryan Pressly as their clear closer.

In fact, it’s been a while since a team has had three different closing-caliber pitchers used to lock down games. The 1990 Cincinnati Reds (which also had Yankee fan favorite Paul O’Neill) had the “Nasty Boys”, a trio of Randy Myers, Rob Dibble, and Norm Charlton, who combined for 44 saves and served as one of the most dominant late-inning reliever trios in baseball history, and completely dominated the playoffs on the way to a World Series title. Since that Reds team, there haven’t been many clubs who used their bullpen in that way, or have equally talented relievers to accomplish that. One of the few examples since the 1990 Reds was the 2015 Kansas City Royals, who used Kelvin Herrera, Wade Davis, and Greg Holland to a devastating effect and also won the World Series with them. Holland and Davis combined for a staggering 49 saves during the year.

The fact that the Yankees lead the league in bullpen ERA by an enormous margin is clear proof that the approach they’re using is working. If they can keep it up throughout the season and make the playoffs, perhaps the Yankees can have a major advantage heading into October.