If you are a free-agent relief pitcher in the top tier, this might already have been a very good winter for you. We have already seen three players sign deals with an annual value of $14 million per year
or more. Raisel Iglesias got things going, returning to the Braves on a one-year contract for $16 million. This was followed by Ryan Helsley going from the Mets to the Orioles, getting a two-year deal with a total cost of $28 million. But New York barely paused before replacing him, going across town to snag former Yankee Devin Williams, for three years and $45 million, plus an additional $6 million as a signing bonus.
What’s notable is that all of the players in question had their share of struggles last year. Yet that doesn’t seem to have stopped clubs from spending big. We’re only a month in to the off-season, and we have already surpassed the total of such contracts from all last winter. Indeed, there was only one such signed: Tanner’s Scott’s four-year deal with the Dodgers, worth $72 million (including its sizeable signing bonus). These signings have caused quite some angst among local fans, who understandably remember the 2024 bullpen struggles, and fear another season relying on what’s frequently derided as “dumpster diving” by GM Mike Hazen.
But hold on. You don’t have to look far to see the perils of spending big on relievers. For Scott had a wretched season in Los Angeles, putting up a 4.74 ERA across 61 appearances. The resulting ERA+ of 88 was comparable to the likes of Kyle Backhus in the D-backs bullpen. Backhus did not earn anything close to the $16 million Scott took home. Scott’s colleague in the Dodgers’ relief corp, Kirby Yates, signed for $13 million and was even worse, with a 5.23 ERA. Between them, Los Angeles spent $29 million for a combined ERA perilously close to five. Peanuts for them, but that kind of outlay for replacement level pitching would be a disaster for the Diamondbacks.
I decided to dig a bit further into the topic, starting off with this page on Fangraphs, which lists all the relief pitchers signed last winter. Conveniently, there were exactly fifty who inked contracts with an average annual value (AAV) of $1 million or more. I split them into three tiers of as close to equal size as I could manage. That gave me the high-priced relievers with an AAV greater than $5.5 million. The mid-tier ones, who cost between $2 and $5.5 million. And the “dumpster diving” ones, costing under $2 million. That last category is where the D-backs could be found, with the signings last winter of Jalen Beeks, Kendall Graveman and Shelby Miller.
Indeed, while all were cheap, those three pitchers perhaps represent the “three true outcomes” of relief pitching. Graveman was a disaster: he missed time through injury, then struggled to a 7.13 ERA before being let go in mid-August. Beeks was solid enough, his 3.77 ERA being somewhat better than MLB reliever average (4.08). And, of course, Miller was a gem plucked from the dung-heap. He went from being a non-roster invitee to leading the team in saves this year. Even including his less successful time after getting dealt to Milwaukee, he still had a 2.74 ERA across 48 appearances. You can’t argue other than that Miller was dumpster diving, done right.
But three is a bit small sample, so I looked at the 2025 performance of all fifty signed relievers. 49 pitched in the majors, the exception being Drew Smith, who had undergone Tommy John surgery in July 2024, and was signed on a flyer by the Mets. There were a couple who did make a number of starts, such as Ryan Yarbrough, but I decided to let all their innings and ERA count as they landed. Below, is the table, in descending order of AAV, also showing the IP, ERA and bWAR for each pitcher. The groups discussed above are color-coded green, yellow and red respectively.
What stands out immediately, is the lack og any obvious correlation between ERA and AAV. Sure, you have expensive, successful pitchers like Aroldis Chapman (who also cropped up here recently, when we were discussing aging curves). But Scott and Yates weren’t the only busts. Blake Treinen was another eight-figure AAV to be below replacement level for Los Angeles. That trio were like Cy Young contenders beside Jordan Romano, who was paid $8.5 million by the Phillies for his 8.23 ERA. And here’s a familiar name: Paul Sewald. He was mostly injured, below replacement level when healthy after signing with Cleveland, then dealt to the Tigers.
The above graph plots ERA against AAV, and if you can see a pattern there, you are probably one of the people who can make sense of those 3D pictures at the mall. If you want statistics, the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient of ERA and AAV is a whopping -0.013. That’s basically random. However, I also added up the results for each member of the three groups, to see what this showed. All told, the 17 members of the top tier – those signed last winter for more than $5.5 million – averaged 42.8 innings at an ERA of 3.91, while putting up 0.42 bWAR. The middle tier pitched slightly more (48.2 IP) but were worse (4.07 ERA and 0.24 bWAR). No surprise there.
Then you get to the bottom group: the “dumpster diving” relievers, signed last winter to an AAV of less than $2 million. They averaged 46.4 innings… but at the lowest ERA among the three groups, of 3.35, and with the highest overall production, 0.54 bWAR. Standouts there include Shawn Armstrong, who cost just $1.25 million, but appeared 71 times for Texas, with a 2.31 ERA; or Sean Newcomb, who cost the same as Miller, $1 million, and had a 2.73 ERA across 92.1 innings between the Athletics and Red Sox. He was worth 1.6 bWAR: that’s more than the six highest-paid relievers combined, with an AAV of almost $73 million.
So, to be perfectly clear: spending big on relievers last winter turned out to be a waste of money. Now, I can’t say what happened in any other seasons, but I’ve a feeling you won’t find much correlation between price and ERA there either. The D-backs have very limited resources to spend this off-season. I sincerely believe (and the numbers above seem to back me up) that punting an eight-figure amount of them on a reliever is not a sensible way to use them. You have as much chance of lucking into a good season from a cheap reliever, as of someone expensive living up to their high price-tag. Spend the money elsewhere.
