The Offseason Monitor: Rays Closer Committee

Garrett Cleavinger looks like an early saves sleeper

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Intro (Jon)

You’ve all been seeing some news articles come out from Hunter, and today, we introduce another new writer! Kyle Johansen. He’s been involved in MLB DW fantasy leagues, and he’s even had the life-changing good fortune of being in the fantasy football league, which means he’s helped contribute to my undefeated season so far.

So I’m happy to publish his debut this morning. Kyle found some news about the Rays ' back-of-the-bullpen plans for 2026, at least as they currently stand. Here it is!

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Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times came out with an interesting nugget Tuesday night, revealing the Rays’ current plans for a closer by committee. Topkin noted Griffin Jax, Edwin Uceta, and Garrett Cleavinger are all expected to close out games in 2026.

There are a couple of actionable items to unpack here. Griffin Jax is the headliner, as he was one of the most dominant relievers in baseball last year, ranking 8th in K-BB at 28.1%. He was also rumored to be an option in the starting rotation, which would have elevated his draft value. Jax currently has an ADP at NFBC of 244, and likely would have moved into the top 200 if he were being stretched out. He may still move into the top 200 with the confirmation that he will be getting saves in 2026.

The biggest riser from this news should be Garrett Cleavinger. You only need to move down three spots on the K-BB leaderboard for relief pitchers in 2025 to find Cleavinger ranked 11th at 26.3%. Last season was Cleavinger’s second as a full-time reliever and it saw him increase his strikeout rate from 26.7% to 33.7%, while lowering his walk rate from 11.7% to 7.4%. The result was a 2.35 ERA and 82 strikeouts in 61.1 innings pitched.

Cleavinger is currently being selected around pick 550 at the NFBC, and you can expect that number to melt down into the 300s and potentially lower as draft season continues. Edwin Uceta has an ADP of 277, so it would be reasonable to see Cleavinger selected in that range moving forward. Uceta broke out in 2024 with a 30.8% K-BB rate, and while he did not sustain it last season, he finished with a respectable 2.84 SIERA. His 23.7% K-BB was good for 18th among relievers.

Diving Deeper on Garrett Cleavinger

Cleavinger is mainly a sinker/slider guy, going 50% sinkers in his left-on-left matchups and 51% sliders to the right handers. As a lefty, we may assume that Cleavinger would have his save chances based on matchups. Although looking at the surface numbers last season, you might be tempted to believe that won’t be the case. However, a deeper dive shows that Cleavinger was in fact more effective against LHH.

Garrett Cleavinger vs LHH

• 20.1 IP

• .187/.274/.347

• .277 wOBA allowed

• 36.9% K rate

• 28.6% K-BB

Garrett Cleavinger vs RHH

• 41 IP

• .183/.264/.338

• .267 wOBA allowed

• 32.1% K rate

• 25.2% K-BB

While the slash line splits look nearly identical, you can see in the strikeout numbers that Cleavinger was clearly more effective against lefties. The reason the splits look so similar is due to some terrible home run luck.

• HR/9 vs LHH: 1.77

• HR/9 vs RHH: 1.10

• HR/FB vs LHH: 33.3%

• HR/FB vs RHH: 13.9%

There is no chance that Cleavinger will allow 33.3% of fly balls to leave the ballpark in 2026, no matter where the batter stands in the box. We can expect a lot of positive regression in that area.

What makes the home run luck harder to believe is that Cleavinger induced groundballs at a 50% clip against lefties with a 1.75 GB/FB, so it seems the few times that lefties did elevate the ball, it left the ballpark. This is likely related to the Rays playing half of their games in George Steinbrenner Field with the short porch in right. Fortunately for Cleavinger, the Rays will be back at Tropicana Field in 2026.

Garrett Cleavinger Fantasy Outlook

Overall, Cleavinger has the bat-missing skills of a top 10 closer, although it is unlikely the Rays hand him the keys full-time. What will be essential to Cleavinger earning more than a handful of saves is if his 2.64 BB/9 can stick after a 4.65 mark over 60 innings in 2024.

Given his elite numbers last year, Cleavinger is a steal at his current ADP of 586 and should be picked ahead of Edwin Uceta if you believe the command from 2025 is for real.