Ranking the Top Five Pirates Closers Since the 2000 Season
It is one of the best moments in a game for the home team's fans when their team is winning heading into the ninth. The video board goes black, the music gets a little bit louder, and the anticipation in the stadium begins to build. The video board suddenly lights up with a highlight reel full if strikeouts and game-winning plays as the closer comes barrelling out of the bullpen for another save opportunity. Over the last several years, a save opportunity has been almost guaranteed for the Pirates with one of their top arms serving as closer. Each of Pittsburgh's last four closers has at least made one all-star game appearance and has recorded at least 30 saves throughout the season.
Today, we will be looking at the top five Pirates who have held the closer's role in the 21st Century. We will only look at stats from the 2000 season to current even if the player was with the Pirates before 2000. The closer is one of the most important roles on the field, and also one of the most scrutinized. If you're good, people know you are good and if you are bad you are going to hear about it. These five men handled the closer's role the best in the decade and helped turn the Pirates from perennial losers to a playoff-caliber team.
#5 Matt Capps: 67-89 Saves, 3.61 ERA, 271.2 IP
Matt Capps spent five years in a Pirates uniform from 2005 - 2009 and held the closer's role for three full seasons. In his Pirates career, he went 67 for 89 in save opportunities while posting a career ERA of 3.61 with Pittsburgh. His best season came in 2008 when he went 21 for 26 in save opportunities with a 3.02 ERA in 53.2 innings of work. When he came on the field that season, especially during home games, you knew the game was in good hands. He wasn't your typical strikeout closer, as he never had a season where he had more strikeouts than innings pitched, but he more than likely was good to get the job done.
Capps was a guy who would come in and pound the strike zone at an average of 70.1% throughout his Pirates career. He had strong control never walking more than 20 batters in a single season. However, he had a down year in 2009 posting a career-high 5.08 ERA and the Pirates let him go to free agency. Capps would go on to pitch for the Washington Nationals and Minnesota Twins before retiring following the 2016 season. He made one all-star game appearance back in 2010 with the Nationals. Capps returned to the Pirates this season as one of three rotating color analyst for TV and Radio broadcasts. Capps had a strong four-year closers career in Pittsburgh and earned the number five spot on today's countdown.
#4 Jose Mesa: 70 saves, 82 opp., 3.92 ERA
Jose Mesa had a long baseball career that started in 1987 and spanned through the 2007 season. In those 20 years, he played for nine different organizations, appearing out of the bullpen for all of them. He served as the closer for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2004 and 2005 and had some of his best years in the closer's role. In two seasons, he went 70-82 in save opportunities with a 3.92 ERA in 126 innings of work. He collected 43 saves during the 2004 season while posting a career-low 3.52 ERA. In 2005, he reached a career milestone recording his 300th career save against the Houston Astros and ended the year with 27 saves under his belt.
Mesa was another closer who would not light up the scoreboard with strikeouts, but he was a workhorse out of the bullpen. He worked 55+ innings each season and threw in a career-high 69.1 innings of work during the 2004 season. His strike percentage was a little lower than that of Capps, at just 65%, but he still showed strong control. After his run with Pittsburgh, he would play two more seasons with the Rockies, Tigers, and Phillies before officially retiring after the 2007 season at the age of 41. He had one of the best years of his career in 2004 with the Pirates, earning the number four spot on our list.
#3 Joel Hanrahan: 82 saves, 94 opp., 2.72 ERA
The recent trend for Pirates closers has been that the set-up man steps in to take over the closer's role whenever the closer leaves. Reliever Joel Hanrahan started this trend, taking over when Matt Capps left for the Washington Nationals. Prior to joining the Pirates, Hanrahan had very little experience in the closer's role but ended up flourishing with the Pirates. He converted 82 of his 94 save opportunities over his three years in Black and Gold while posting a 2.72 ERA in 198 innings of work. Hanrahan was a two-time all-star with the Pirates making the mid-summer classic in 2011 and 2012.
His breakout year as a closer came during the 2011 season when he converted 40 of his 44 save opportunities and posted a career-low 1.82 ERA. Prior to that season, Hanrahan had not had more than nine saves in a season and his single-season high for save opportunities was just 13. He helped lead the Pirates on the rebuild that would get them back to the playoffs from 2013 - 2014 helping teach the team what winning feels like. However, after the 2012 season, the Pirates would trade Hanrahan to the Boston Red Sox ending his Pirates career. Hanrahan would only pitch one more season in the Big Leagues before injuries forced him into retirement. Now, Hanrahan serves as the pitching coach for Double-A Altoona as he helps prepare the next generation of Pirates pitchers.
#2 Mike Williams: 117 saves, 133 opp., 3.86 ERA
Mike Williams pitched with the Pirates prior to the 2000 season but, for the purposes of this list, we are going to only focus on his stats from 2000 on. He is the longest-tenured closer on the list and served as the closer for three seasons in the 21st century. He converted 117 of his 139 saves and posted a 3.86 ERA in those three seasons. He kept an ERA under 3.50 in all but one of those seasons but served two different stints with the Pirates during that stretch. The Pirates traded Williams to the Astros in the 2001 season, but the right-hander came back to the Pirates during that off-season.
William's best season came in 2002 when he set the Pirates single-season saves record with 46 saves in 50 opportunities. He posted a 2.93 ERA that season and earned the first of his two MLB All-Star game appearances. The following season, he made the all-star game again but had one of the worst seasons of his MLB career posting a 6.27 ERA in 40 games played. He would be traded to the Philadelphia Phillies halfway through the 2003 season and would end his career that year. Williams ended up pitching in 11 Big League seasons playing for four different teams throughout his career.
#1 Mark Melancon: 130 saves, 144 opp., 1.85 ERA
One of the biggest breakouts in Pirates history, Mark Melancon helped the Pirates navigate through three playoff years from 2013 - 2016. After serving as the set-up man for Jason Grilli in 2013, he took over the closer's role full-time in 2014 and took the league by storm. He went from part-time closer for the Astros to holding the Pirates single-season record for saves. Melancon's best season was in 2015 when he converted 51 of his 53 save opportunities while leading the Pirates to their third straight NL Wild Card Game appearance. He was a three-time all-star in a Pirates uniform making it in 2013, 2015, and 2016.
Melancon came over to Pittsburgh in the trade that sent Hanrahan to the Boston Red Sox back in the 2012 off-season. He started his time out as a set-up man with the Pirates before converting to the full-time closer's role. The Pirates traded Melancon at the 2016 trade deadline for Felipe Vazquez and minor leaguer Taylor Hearn ending his run in a Pirates uniform. However, after he left the Pirates, he could never capture the magic of that 2015 season again and hasn't converted more than 11 games in a season since the 2016 season. Melancon helped represent a new era of Pirates baseball and helped bring a lot of fans back to baseball in the city.
That concludes our list of the top five closers since 2000 for the Pittsburgh Pirates. There were other great pitchers to fill the closer's role throughout the 2000s, but these five men take the list as the best of the best for me. As always, all lists are up for debate, and feel free to let me know who you think could be added or taken away from the list. Next week, we will look at the too five starting pitchers of the 2000s.
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