RADIO
Emmanuel Clase 2025 Fantasy Baseball Outlook: Star Closer Eyes Another Top Year
20 mins agoCleveland Guardians relief pitcher Emmanuel Clase enters 2025 coming off of his best big-league campaign yet. The closer logged 47 saves with a pristine 0.61 ERA and 0.66 WHIP over 74 ⅓ innings, all of which were career-high marks. Seasons like this are possible when great talent meets great fortune. Clase doesn't need luck to achieve an elite form, but a .195 BABIP despite a 57 percent groundball rate helped secure such low ratios. That BABIP was 100 points lower than 2023's mark and roughly 50 points below his career rate. Some of that "luck" was actually a 98th-percentile hard-hit rate of 29.7 percent, but his .214 expected batting average against was actually lower in both 2021 and '22. This is not to say he was anything but electrifying on the bump, but it helps put his ATC projection of 2.65 ERA/1.03 WHIP in perspective. Clase will hit his age-27 season with an unmatched workload, with his 226 games over the last three seasons standing 13 contests above the next RP. Drafters will also note a strikeout rate below 25 percent in back-to-back years, but the dependable volume with a track record of incredible ratios still paints him as both the ADP market and our No. 1 reliever off the board.
