Recently, some friends were discussing who’s the best closer in the MLB. Well, Craig Kimbrel is currently the active leader in saves and he already collected 372 saves in his career. However, they had very different opinions when someone was indicating that Aroldis Chapman is better than Kenley Jansen.
So, let’s see their performance in their careers.
Kenely Jansen is just a few months older than Aroldis Chapman. They made their MLB debuts in the same year. Kenley Jansen made his MLB debut against the New York Mets on July 24, 2010 and he tossed one inning with two strikeouts, moreover, he picked up his first career save the next day. However, Jansen only collected 9 saves in his first two seasons with the Dodgers.
Aroldis Chapman made it into the big league with the Reds on August 31, 2010. Chapman tossed one inning against the Brewers and struck out one batter. Chapman threw 13.1 innings in 2010 and 50 innings in 2011. He picked up his first career save on July 6, 2011.
Neither Jansen nor Chapman got many save opportunities in their first two seasons in the major. Nonetheless, things changed in the third year. Jansen collected 25 saves for the Dodgers in 2012 and Chapman finished the 2012 season with 38 saves.
By far, Jansen already collected 340 saves. In particular, Jansen has three seasons to collect at least 40 saves. Moreover, Chapman has 300 saves and there are 7 seasons that Chapman collected at least 30 saves.
Jansen has a 0.94 WHIP so far, which is lower than Chapman’s 1.05 WHIP. However, Chapman’s ERA is lower than Jansen’s ERA. Also, Chapman already threw 977 strikeouts and Kenley Jansen picked up 1000th career strikeout on Wednesday, August 25.
As we can see, these two pitchers have been pitching well so far in their careers.
Now, let’s look at their performance in the postseason.
The Dodgers won the NL West title for 8 consecutive years and Jansen has 49 postseason appearances from 2013 to 2020. Jansen collected 18 saves while blowing 4 times. Unfortunately, all these blown saves occurred in the World Series. But, Jansen has a 2.40 ERA and a 0.83 WHIP with 78 strikeouts in the postseason.
Chapman’s first playoff appearance wasn’t a good one. It was the second game between the Reds and the Phillies in the 2010 NLDS. Chapman gave up 2 hits and allowed 3 runs in 0.2 innings, but none of these runs were earned runs. However, in the record book, it’s still a blown save. Furthermore, Chapman blew 3 saves in the 2016 playoffs when he was playing for the Cubs. Nevertheless, he hasn’t blown any save opportunities since then. By far, Chapman has 10 saves in the postseason.
Jansen and Chapman each blew 4 saves in the postseason and they each have a 2.40 ERA. But, Jansen’s WHIP in the postseason is lower than Chapman’s WHIP. Opponents couldn’t hit well against either Jansen or Chapman. Nonetheless, some hits became huge damages. Jansen gave up 5 home runs in the World Series and Chapman gave up 1 home run in the 2016 World Series. Additionally, Jose Altuve hit a walk-off homer against Chapman in the 2019 ALCS to send the Astros to the World Series. Last year, Mike Brosseau hit a go-ahead homer against Chapman in the finale of the ALDS. Those were bad memories for these two good closers.
There’s little doubt that both Jansen and Chapman are reliable closers in the majors and they have been securing wins for their teams for a long time. However, sometimes, they had bad days and very unfortunately, some of those bad days happened in the playoffs.
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