Emmanuel Clase is the best closer in baseball, and it might not be close.
The guy posted a jaw-dropping 0.61 ERA in 74.1 frames this year.
We are not talking about a 15 or 20-inning sample: it’s a full-season reliever workload in which Clase conceded a mere five earned runs.
He was, as always, dominant in September, which earned him another award.
“ICYMI: For the third time this season, Emmanuel Clase has won AL Reliever of the Month for September,” Guardians on SI wrote on X.
ICYMI: For the third time this season, Emmanuel Clase has won AL Reliever of the Month for September.https://t.co/7JyMo9rIAk
— Cleveland Guardians On SI (@GuardiansOnSI) October 1, 2024
The regular season has six full months.
In half of them, three to be exact, Clase outclassed his peers, and to be fair, it should have been more.
He was lights-out in the last month of the season, with 11 scoreless innings, two walks, and 11 strikeouts.
He surrendered just four hits over that span, and was a perfect 7-for-7 in save chances.
As we have said many times in this space, Clase is as close to an automatic ninth inning as there is in the big leagues right now.
If it wasn’t for the fact that Tarik Skubal just won the American League pitching Triple Crown, we would say Clase would even get some first-place Cy Young votes.
That’s unlikely to happen given the circumstances, but Clase definitely deserves some Cy Young recognition.
Yes, he is a reliever, but he was so much better than his peers that he deserves a lot of praise.
He is an integral part of what the Guardians will try to do in the postseason: shorten games for opposing teams.
NEXT: Guardians Stay Active As They Wait For The Start Of The Division Series
