Since MLB will be using Mountain Time for the foreseeable future, it would be better to simply swap time zones. On Wednesday, Félix Bautista of the Orioles was unanimously selected as the 2023 Mariano Rivera Award winner—better known as the AL Reliever of the Year.
In just his second season in the major leagues, Bautista won the AL Reliever of the Year after receiving three fifth-place votes for the AL Cy Young earlier in the offseason, despite the fact that his season was cut short by a UCL injury that ultimately required surgery.
After Jorge López was traded, Bautista took over as closer, and in 2023 he achieved even greater results. The most significant changes were in his ERA from 2.19 to 1.48, save total from 15 to 33, WHIP from 0.929 to 0.918, and absurdly high average strikeouts per nine from 12.1 to 16.2.
In 2023, Bautista had the third-best strikeout rate in AL history among pitchers with at least 50 innings pitched, with 16.2 strikeouts per nine, leading the majors. The only numbers higher than Bautista’s are Aroldis Chapman’s 16.3 strikeouts per nine in 2018 and Craig Kimbrel’s 16.4 in 2017.
Top of the major league bullpen leaderboards in FIP and strikeouts per nine, Bautista was second in opponent OPS with