BJ is easily the best closer in baseball, and if he continues this pace will have the finest season ever by a closer. He, like Papelbon has allowed two earned runs this year in close to 40 innings. However, he has just one blown save, and no losses, while Papelbon has two blown saves and a loss. Also, whenever the eighth inning guy is having difficulties he can come in and get the final 4, 5 or 6 outs. This is the primary reason the Jays bullpen has only 3 losses this year, despite a high bullpen era. He also strikes out more guys than Papelbon, case in point this evening where all 5 outs were k's. Astonishing eh.

It's not like Papelbon is not striking out players -- Ryan has 46, Papelbon has 41. Papelbon does have a better K/BB ratio (close to 6.83 as opposed to 5.75). Both pitchers have allowed 2 runs. Papelbon's 2 blown saves were coming in the 8th inning with multiple runners on (allowed the tieing run to score, got the win) and a Pesky Pole HR (also a game that the Sox won) that would have been a foul ball in any other park in MLB. To be fair, the Jays won when Ryan blew his save.

Papelbon has 6 1-run saves and blown 2 1-run save attempts, Ryan has 3 1-run saves and blown 1. Same save percentage. Overall, Papelbon has a leverage of 1.73, Ryan 1.17, meaning that Papelbon has been in much tougher situations over all.

Both pitchers have picthed a lot of multi-inning appearances -- 9 for Papelbon, 11 for Ryan. Papelbon averages slightly more innings per appearance.

One of the notable differences is #P/PA, where Papelbon is about league average and Ryan is an atrocious 4.39. The entire group of qualifying pitchers range from 3.58 to 4.06 P/PA.

Both are having amazing seasons. I think it is hard to call one clearly better than the other. If I were to choose one stat, it would be BP's expected win adjusted above replacement, lineup-adjusted (WXRL). Papelbon leads the majors in WXRL hands down, at 4.392. Ryan is a distant 3rd at 3.652. Jenks is second at 3.769.

Mariano Rivera leads in the majors' late inning relievers in IP with 44. In addition to his 4 multi-inning saves, he has
4 multi-inning wins, which is worthwhile if you think wins
are worthwhile. If you want to manipulate the 'saves'
designation somehow to minimize Mariano, fine, it's a free country--but that's the only reason you'd do it this way. He pitched 2 IP on May 20, 3 IP on May 30, 1 2/3
IP on June 16, and 2 IP on June 28, these 4 for wins--bad boy, a win but no save. BJ
& Papelbon are either relatively new or very new on the
scene, and have great promise. But some might wish to
know that Mariano Rivera doesn't really rank 4th in multi inning late inning relief. BJ Ryan's boss told Francesa on WFAN about a week ago that the Yankee closer has been the main reason for their success in recent
years. They are hopeful they'll be going down that road with their new closer who, as was widely reported, did not want the 'pressure' of pitching in
New York.