Emmanuel Clase’s path to becoming MLB’s top closer (and the best in Cleveland history)
CLEVELAND, OHIO - AUGUST 02: Emmanuel Clase #48 of the Cleveland Guardians celebrates the team's 8-4 win over the Baltimore Orioles at Progressive Field on August 02, 2024 in Cleveland, Ohio. (Photo by Nick Cammett/Diamond Images via Getty Images)
By Zack Meisel
Sep 3, 2024
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There might not be a more daunting assignment in baseball. The hitter nervously, helplessly traipses toward the plate in the ninth inning. His team is staring at a deficit and the hitter is staring at the imposing gaze of La Kabra, or “The Goat,” the nickname stitched onto Emmanuel Clase’s glove.
Clase carries an ERA below 1.00 and an aura above all others.
Everything about him reeks of his dominance. The way a camera chronicles every step of his journey from the Progressive Field bullpen, down a set of steps, through a padded door and to the mound. The way flames consume the scoreboard, the music stops and the sirens from Lil Wayne’s “Fireman” blare on the ballpark speakers. The way he prowls around the mound like a lion readying to pounce on its prey. All a hitter has as a defense against Clase is a piece of lumber that his 101-mph cutter churns to dust.
“What Clase’s doing,” Cleveland Guardians manager Stephen Vogt said, “I haven’t seen anything better.”
Clase, at the age of 26, is already Cleveland’s all-time saves leader. He’s in the thick of the American League Cy Young Award conversation, even though no reliever has earned the honor in 21 years.
Perhaps most impressive, Clase has made ninth innings something they rarely are in baseball in any city in any year: stress-free. Guardians second baseman Andrés Giménez said he rejoices when Clase enters because it means he can go home early. Yeah, the guy even preserves his teammates’ postgame dinner reservations.
He has converted 28 consecutive save chances, bested only by José Mesa in franchise history. He joined Mesa last month as the only Cleveland relievers with a save on four straight days. He logged two clean innings in a heavyweight bout at Yankee Stadium in mid-August, and he pleaded with Vogt to pitch a third.
“He doesn’t flinch from any moment,” said Royals manager Matt Quatraro.
Cleveland traded its longtime ace, Corey Kluber, to the Texas Rangers in December 2019 for an unproven commodity they hoped would blossom into their ace reliever. There were caveat-riddled comparisons to Mariano Rivera, only because both are right-handed closers with a cutter that zips toward a hitter’s knuckles. No one dared to suggest Clase would follow Rivera to Cooperstown. That’s still presumptuous five years later, but it’s at least conceivable now.
Clase, like Rivera, began as a starting pitcher, a teenager in the San Diego Padres’ system who idolized Pedro Martínez because Martínez filled up the strike zone and never backed down. Clase shifted to a relief role and he studied Rivera, marveling at the way he blended intensity with a calmness on the mound in the most climactic moments.
Like Rivera, Clase doesn’t chase gaudy strikeout totals. The cutter breaks bats, busts rallies and keeps his arm fresh. Clase cherishes any outing that only requires eight or nine pitches, the appearances that give him more ammo for his daily sales pitch to the manager when he insists he can cover the ninth despite pitching three days in a row. He needed only 10 pitches to breeze through the heart of the Royals’ order on Monday to notch his 41st save of the season.
That durability can be traced back to the countryside in Río San Juan, his hometown in the Dominican Republic, where he spent his childhood throwing rocks and climbing trees on the family farm, running along the sandy shores of the beach and swimming in the scenic Laguna Gri-Gri, home to a bird sanctuary and boat tours.
Otherwise, he would show up to local baseball games, uninvited, and mind his own business until someone urged him to take the mound. He would throw one game in the morning and another in the afternoon. His arm never tired. He threw fastball after fastball, clocking in at 82 mph in his early teenage years. No heater kept a straight line, but he had pinpoint command from a young age. That pitch ultimately developed into the cutter he throws today, the one responsible for an opponent slugging percentage of .232 and a 99th-percentile hard-hit rate.
“What he can do with a baseball is incredible,” said Hunter Gaddis, Clase’s setup man.
Clase’s tenure in Cleveland initially stalled, with a PED suspension that spanned the shortened 2020 season.
“It was the impulse to show, even more, what I can do on the field,” he said.
He snatched the club’s closer role from James Karinchak midway through the 2021 season and hasn’t looked back. He deemed a 3.22 ERA and a league-high 12 blown saves unacceptable last season, so he returned to Río San Juan, worked with a trainer who knows him well, and refined his lower-half mechanics.
Teammate Scott Barlow calls Clase’s pre-pitch routine his favorite snapshot of any game. (Nick Cammett / Diamond Images via Getty Images)
Here he is, otherworldly as usual, recording numbers we’ve rarely witnessed any reliever achieve. His 0.71 ERA would be the third-lowest of any qualified reliever in the last 30 years.
It’s his drive to grip the baseball in the diciest moments. It pained him to intentionally walk Aaron Judge in extra innings at Yankee Stadium last month, even though first base was vacant.
It’s his refusal to get rattled. He loaded the bases with no outs, the top of the Twins’ order coming up and the Guardians ahead by two runs in the ninth last month in Minnesota. His heart rate didn’t budge, despite anxiety flowing in the visitors’ dugout like a faulty soda fountain.
“I just looked at him the whole time and that dude didn’t take a deep breath,” Vogt said. “He didn’t gather himself, he didn’t flinch and he just reared back and hit 102.”
It’s his consistency. He’s the first closer with 40 or more saves in three straight seasons since Craig Kimbrel from 2011-14 with the Atlanta Braves.
It’s the fact that the accolades are cool, but they’re merely footnotes to him. The toast from teammates after his 150th save — the one Friday night that moved him past Cody Allen to the top of the franchise leaderboard — was thoughtful. The words from pitching coach Carl Willis were touching. The champagne tasted sweet. The trophy to commemorate the feat will look great in his living room.
That’s all cosmetic, though.
“The real goal is to win a championship,” Clase said.
Not every pitcher is built to handle the burden of outs 25, 26 and 27. When Brad Ausmus was Oakland’s bench coach in 2022, Vogt’s last season as a big-league catcher, Ausmus crafted an analogy to describe the necessary makeup for a successful closer.
Ausmus said if you ask someone to walk across a card table, anyone can stand atop it and walk from one side to the other. But if you place that card table 5,000 feet in the air, who will walk across it?
“Emmanuel would walk across that card table,” Vogt said. … “He’s not afraid.”
When he reaches the mound after his jog from the bullpen, Clase turns his back to home plate, places his glove to his face and recites a prayer to exhibit gratitude for the opportunity. It’s fellow Guardians reliever Scott Barlow’s favorite snapshot from any game. Clase’s presence on the mound, for one, typically means the Guardians are on victory’s doorstep. But it’s also a glimpse into the mental process for a pitcher with the fortitude to handle baseball’s most pressure-packed circumstances. Clase collects his breath, locks in and doesn’t waver until he’s high-fiving his catcher.
What he craves is to enter a game with a World Series at stake, with a championship hanging in the balance and with history hanging from his fingertips. Rivera was at his best in October, and Clase, the best closer in Cleveland’s history, covets the chance to prove he can do the same.
“That,” he said, “is everything I dream of.”
