Relief Pitcher of the Year
- Mike Whiteman
- Feb 10
- 4 min read
By Mike Whiteman February 10, 2025 In 2014, Major League Baseball initiated awards to recognize the top relief pitchers in the game. Since then, the Mariano Rivera award goes to the top American League reliever, and the Trevor Hoffman award to the best in the National League.
To clarify, these awards are not akin to the "Rolaids Relief Award" that was once awarded based on a formula with wins, losses, and saves. They have been voted upon by former relief pitchers.
We know that relief pitching has been a significant part of the game for much longer than since 2014 though. So, how do we recognize the "firemen" from the past?
I came up with a simple idea - the Relief Pitcher of the Year award.
Despite the exciting and snazzy name, the Relief Pitcher of the Year (RPY) is a simple concept for retroactively recognizing relievers:
The Relief Pitcher of the Year will be given to the relief pitcher who finishes highest among his bullpen peers in the Cy Young voting.
In 1960, reliever Lindy McDaniel of St. Louis was 12-4, 2.09 with 27 saves and finished third in Cy Young voting (only one Cy Young was awarded then). What is significant about this is that he was the first pitcher who was primarily a reliever to receive any votes for this award. That was a bit of an exception, as the next time a reliever received votes was in 1970, when Ron Perranoski of Minnesota and Dave Giusti were among the Cy Young voting, and the tops finishers among relief pitchers. Since that time, there has usually been a reliever in the annual Cy Young voting.
Adding these pitchers to the list of Rivera/Hoffman winners since 2014 make for a interesting look at the great relievers of our time :
Some thoughts: - Kimbrell and Sutter both won five awards. We know Sutter was very, very good and a Hall-of-Famer. Kimbrell, despite recent struggles, looks to be HOF quality for his complete body of work - 440 saves, nine all-star selections, 156 ERA+. His 2011-2018 is particularly spectacular - 1.97 ERA while averaging 42 saves a season. - Mariano Rivera took home four RPY awards and finished second twice. No surprise there. - John Smoltz is the only pitcher to win a Cy Young award as a starting pitcher (1996) and RPY (2002). Impressive! - Mike Marshall's 1972-1974 may be one of the most dominant runs by a reliever. Over these three seasons, he averaged 88 games, 168 innings pitched, 23 saves, and a 2.36 ERA. He won the 1974 National League Cy Young Award and finished second in 1973, along with three RPY awards.
- Newly elected Hall-of-Famer Billy Wagner only took home one RPY award. I still am just fine with his enshrinement, as he may have been the "filthiest" pitcher of all-time.
- In the acquisition of Devin Williams, the Yankees picked up a two-time reliever of the year. Will he add more to his collection?
Like the Cy Young award, this is certainly not a full proof evaluation system. Take the 1975 American League for example. Rich Gossage had one of the great relief seasons of all time - 1.84 ER, 26 saves, 8.2 WAR (noted now) in 141.2 innings. All numbers were superior to Rollie Fingers, who finished significantly higher in the voting despite inferior stats in all categories.
What the RPY does give us is a feel for who was considered the best of the relievers by their contemporary voters.
What do you think?
WOW! Great job Mike.
Mike Marshall was amazing. He had all sorts of great insights into pitching and mechanics too.