The 5 Relievers You Should Be Paying More Attention To

Relief pitchers have become extremely valuable over the past couple of years and with that has come the trend of teams building their pitching staff from the back to the front, while relying on their bullpen more than ever. The current statistical trends over the past few seasons help to back up that claim as does the evidence about how many innings every teams starting pitching has logged to this point.

With that being said, when you think of relievers in baseball, you usually immediately turn your attention to the likes of current free agent, Craig Kimbrel, along with other names like Aroldis Chapman, Kenley Jansen, Andrew Miller, and Josh Hader. However, outside of those names, there are plenty of other talented individuals who have done just as well and deserve just as much credit.

Here are five current relief pitchers that you should absolutely be paying more attention to and that deserve a lot more credit than they are currently receiving.

1. John Gant (St. Louis Cardinals) - The 26-year old has been off to a phenomenal start for the St. Louis Cardinals so far this year. Through 20 innings of work, Gant has posted a 0.90 ERA along with 19 strikeouts and an Opponent Batting Average Against of (.098). When he is called into the game, Gant is averaging (14.6) pitches per inning, a career low, and (64.7%) of his pitches have counted as strikes, the highest amount of his four-year big league career. Now, John Gant certainly isn't a name that jumps out to many fans on paper, but he certainly is a big contributor to the Cardinals success so far and a reason why St. Louis currently occupies first place in the National League Central.

2. Sam Gaviglio (Toronto Blue Jays) - If a team is looking for relief help come July and Sam Gaviglio is still pitching like he has been, then he will likely be a top choice for many teams. So far this year, Gaviglio has a 1.33 ERA over 20.1 innings pitched with an overall strikeouts-per-9 rate of (9.30), a career high, and a walks-per-9 rate of (0.89), a career low. In addition to those figures, Gaviglio has recorded a (.188) BABIP and has racked up a left on-base percentage of (89.3%). Sam Gaviglio struggled down the stretch last season with Toronto, but the Blue Jays believe they have something special and he is proving to Toronto's front office that he deserves another chance to be successful.

3. Shane Greene (Detroit Tigers) - Of the closers in baseball, Shane Greene has the second most saves (13) so far this year and he's been on fire at the back end of the Detroit Tigers bullpen. Last season at the trade deadline, there was a lot of speculation regarding Greene's status with the big league club and some teams inquired about a potential trade, but the Tigers are probably thankful they decided to hang onto him. Outside of having a 1.80 ERA over 15.0 innings of work, Greene has an overall walk-to-strikeout ratio of (6.33) and has had tremendous success with the groundball, throwing it (50.0%) of the time so far this season, 0.2% away from a career high. An argument can be made that Shane Greene is the best closer in baseball right now as well.

4. Blake Parker (Minnesota Twins) - At the beginning of the season, many people around the game argued that the Minnesota Twins could afford to add someone like Craig Kimbrel to anchor down their bullpen (we did on here), but Blake Parker is proving all of those people wrong. Thus far this season, Parker has a 0.96 ERA over 9.1 innings of work with an (88.9%) left on-base percentage and a 100% save percentage. Outside of that, Parker is relying a lot more on his cutter this year and less on his split-finger fastball. According to the metrics, Parker has thrown his cutter 11.0% of the time this season compared to 0.6% of the time last year and his split-finger fastball 20.3% of the time this year compared to 31.2% of the time last season.

5. Roberto Osuna (Houston Astros) - The Houston Astros would not be a first place team if it weren't for the contributions of Roberto Osuna who has seemingly put up terrific results thus far to erase some of the controversy that surrounded him from last season. Of all of the qualified relievers in baseball, Osuna ranks sixth in ERA (0.68), second in BBIP (.094), and ninth in Fielding Independent Percentage (FIP) with a (1.47) value. Futhermore, Osuna is averaging (13.0) pitches per inning, which is a career low, and has held the opposing team's hitters to a (.071) slugging percentage. It's good to see someone like Osuna experience success like this following the problems off the field last year and the trade has seemingly worked out for, Ken Giles, in Toronto as well.