Top 10 MLB Free Agent Relief Pitchers for 2025
Image credit: Clay Holmes (Photo by Luke Hales/Getty Images)
October baseball is in the air, meaning the offseason isn’t far behind. We’re identifying the top MLB free agents teams could target this winter by taking a data-driven approach to this year’s crop of players.
Below, you can find our breakdown of the top 15 free agent relief pitchers in the 2025 class, with a focus on stuff quality, as well as high leverage experience. We’ll dive deep on the top 10.
Our list leverages work from MLB Trade Rumors for the list of free agents, as well as FanGraphs, Baseball Prospectus and Baseball Reference for player win values above baseline, Baseball Prospectus for DRA, StuffPro and PitchPro, and FanGraphs for all other data, including Stuff+ and Location+. We encourage our readers and subscribers to consider subscribing to FanGraphs and Baseball Prospectus, as well.
1. Clay Holmes
Luke Weaver has supplanted Holmes as the closer for the Yankees, which would strongly suggest that the Yankees will pick up his $2.5M option, so we won’t be including him on this list. Despite Holmes’ struggles with blown saves, he has an absolutely electric arsenal:
Holmes has the classic supinator arsenal: a fantastic sinker and sweeper along with a gyro slider. This video by Tyler Zombro of Tread Athletics does a great job breaking down pronation bias vs supination bias:
All three of Holmes’ pitches are plus pitches or better. Let’s take a look at how StuffPro views the arsenal, with negative numbers representing run prevention per 100 pitches:
| Year | Sinker | Slider | Sweeper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | -1.1 | -1.4 | -2.2 |
| 2023 | -1.1 | -1.8 | -3.1 |
| 2024 | -0.9 | -1.3 | -3.2 |
That’s three pitches that all prevent runs by at at least one run per 100 pitches better than average, and a sweeper that’s one of the best pitches in baseball. The sinker gets a ton of seam-shifted wake depth, dropping about 8-9 inches more than the spin axis would indicate, leading to a negative six degree launch angle in 2023 and a negative four degree launch angle this year. His sinker has a mirrored spin axis to both the sweeper and the gyro slider, likely adding to the deception of the pitch. Stuff+ doesn’t break out the slider and sweeper, but has given them combined grades of 142, 141, 159 and 234 this season.
Given his ability to leverage seam effects, I think he could have a killer changeup, should he want to add another weapon to his arsenal. His arsenal is so good, though, that he doesn’t really need it, especiall.y if he stays in the bullpen. While he headlines this list as a relief pitcher, I think he’s a fantastic candidate to be next year’s Garrett Crochet.
Holmes has a starter’s frame, listed at 6-foot-5, 245 pounds, and was a starting pitcher throughout his minor league career, including as recently as 2018. His sinker-heavy approach would allow him to get through lineups efficiently. If he adds in a changeup, he could have four plus pitches, more than enough to get through lineups multiple times. With Weaver’s ascendance to the closer’s role for the Yankees, it wouldn’t surprise me if they find a way to retain Holmes, and convert him to a starter.
2. Tanner Scott
Scott is very easy to explain, as he has a tremendous FF/SL combo:
His fastball averages 97 mph, with about 2.5 inches more ride than expected given his release characteristics. He gets a ton of whiffs on the pitch, though his 53.6% zone rate is still below what you’d want to see. His slider gets a ton of depth, and is a perfect complement to the fastball. His command ticked up just enough in 2023, and he looks like he’ll dominate hitters with electric stuff for years to come.
3. Jeff Hoffman
Hoffman is an elite, high-leverage bullpen arm, even if he doesn’t have the “proven closer” tag that some teams covet.
While his stuff isn’t quite as electric as Scott’s, his fastball has great velo and shape. He does tend to throw it down the middle a lot, though hitters aren’t hitting home runs off the pitch:
His gyro slider has “death ball” movement, getting negative vert and a tremendous 22% swinging strike rate (per pitch). His splitter also generates a ton of whiffs, though he doesn’t throw it very often. Hoffman has the stuff and pedigree to close games wherever he signs.
4. Aroldis Chapman
Over the last two seasons, Chapman has pitched 120 innings and struck out over 200 batters. With a K% nearing 40%, he’s showcased his still-elite stuff even as he begins the latter half of his 30s. His command comes and goes, and he hasn’t posted a sub 3.00 ERA in five years, but he’s an elite strikeout artist, and it looks like he’ll continue to be one for as long as he pitches.
5. Kenley Jansen
Jansen isn’t the pitcher he used to be, but he’s still a reliable “proven closer” who returned to his roots and upped his usage of the cutter closer to 85% this season. According to FanGraphs, it’s been at least 0.83 runs per 100 pitches better than average every season of his career except for 2019. The decreased usage of his sinker and slider helped them play up as surprise pitches. He only throws the pitch 92 mph, but it’s worked at that velocity for the better part of decade, so there’s no reason to think it won’t continue to do so for a long time.
6. Blake Treinen
Treinen is finally healthy, though not yet all the way back to his former self, having lost a couple of ticks on his sinker. However, he’s now operating as the closer for the Dodgers in the playoffs, which should tell you all you need to know about how much they trust him. Despite the diminished velo, Treinen still posted an ERA below two and, over his injury-riddled Dodgers career, has pitched to a 2.29 ERA over 150 innings. Shoulder injuries can take a really long time for pitchers to build back from, and it looks like Treinen is finally getting back to his old self.
7. Carlos Estevez
Estevez features a great fastball, sitting 96-97 mph with more than two inches of ride above expected given his release characteristics. My SMOKE metric has it as about 0.75 runs/100 pitches above average and Stuff+ has it at 109, but StuffPro is more skeptical, seeing it as only 0.2 runs better than average.
He throws a lot of changeups, but it’s got a terrible theoretical shape without drop and fade, and it rates out very poorly from a stuff perspective. However, the pitch gets whiffs and doesn’t get hammered, so it’s possible the unusual shape works for him and that he sells it well. The slider is a great pitch, but is all metrics. Estevez is a very good pitcher who has proven he can close out games.
8. Paul Sewald
Sewald had a bad season, but the data would strongly suggest that that was due more to smaller sample noise rather than a massive dip in performance. While stuff models do see a decline in fastball quality, mostly due to losing a tick of velo, it still rated out as an excellent pitch: 119 Stuff+ (down from 134 the previous year) and -1.1 StuffPro (down from -1.7 the previous year). My SMOKE linear metric has it as only 0.2 runs better than average, but it may struggle to fully capture the outlier traits that Sewald has. He pairs it with a great slider and mixes in a surprise change every now and then.
Teams that emphasize stuff models will likely have Sewald as a prime target this offseason, especially coming off a bad year where he might come at a discount.
9. Jonathan Loaisiga
Stuff+ has always been a huge fan of Loaisiga:
StuffPro is also a huge fan (negative numbers are good, positive numbers are bad):
| SEASON | FASTBALL | SINKER | SWEEPER | CHANGE |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | -0.5 | -0.9 | -1.6 | |
| 2021 | -0.8 | -1.8 | -1.7 | -0.8 |
| 2022 | -0.3 | -1.1 | -1.4 | -1.2 |
| 2023 | -1.3 | -2.3 | -1.8 | -0.8 |
It’s exceptionally rare for a pitcher to have such a good sinker and four-seam fastball. He pairs that with a plus-plus sweeper and a good changeup. That’s three plus-plus pitches and a fourth average pitch out of the bullpen. From a pure stuff perspective, Loaisiga easily tops this list, and it’s not particularly close. Despite the elite raw stuff and the above average command, he’s never quite put up the results that the metrics are strongly suggesting he should be putting up.
After undergoing UCL surgery in April, Loaisiga might finally be healthy again around mid-season. As one of the younger pitchers on this list with absolutely electric raw stuff, he looks like a major target for teams that are looking towards the postseason and/or building the back of their bullpen for the next few years. When it clicks together, there won’t be many bullpen arms better than Loaisiga.
10. Yimi Garcia
Garcia has an electric arsenal:
Stuff models love his fastball, which is easy to see considering the plus-plus velo and plus-plus ride given the release traits. For whatever reason, he gives up a lot of home runs and isn’t quite as dominant as his raw stuff would indicate. I don’t have a very good explanation as to why he doesn’t produce like a 70 closer, given his raw stuff, so it wouldn’t surprise me if he has a great season as a closer somewhere, nor would it surprise me if he’s just merely pretty good.
Best of the Rest
A.J. Minter has been a very reliable bullpen arm for the bulk of his career, but is coming off a hip injury, putting his health into question. Aaron Bummer has an elite sweeper, a terrible four-seam and a decent sinker, making him a platoon-heavy pitcher who will perform much better against lefties than righties. He’s not quite a specialist, but he needs an uptick in sinker quality to be more than a useful bullpen arm.
Kirby Yates and David Robertson are both in their late 30s but continue to chug along and produce. They are likely to be boring pickups that savvy teams make to bolster their bullpens. Kendall Graveman rounds out this list as an arm with electric stuff that might need some time to work back from shoulder surgery.
