Fantasy Baseball Saves Plus Holds Rankings & Advice (2025)

Each week during the season, I take a look at the reliever landscape to aid with waiver wire and trade decisions. This past week gave us some new and familiar faces returning to fantasy relevance.

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Fantasy Baseball Saves + Holds League Advice

Saves + Holds Leaders

Here are the top 12 relievers in saves plus holds (SV+H) through May 28th.

Takeaways

• Another week, another seven days without an earned run allowed for Andres Munoz. His xERA, xBA, strikeout rate and ground ball rate are all in the 93rd percentile or better. His walk rate is slightly elevated at 9.4%, but he’s gone six straight appearances, spanning 5.2 innings, without allowing a single free pass.
• Robert Suarez continues his strong start to the season, racking up 17 SV+H and averaging a strikeout per inning. However, fantasy managers may want to keep in mind the fact that Suarez looked like the best reliever in baseball last April and May as well. He still had an outstanding season and finished with great numbers despite a poor finish.
• Abner Uribe has steadily climbed the SV+H leaderboard, as well as my top 40 rankings. His 32.4% strikeout rate and 86 miles per hour (MPH) average exit velocity rank in the 92nd percentiles, and he’s keeping the ball on the ground with a 54% groundball rate.
• Emilio Pagan continues to rack up SV+H, despite the elevated ERA. Out of relievers with 12+ SV+H, Pagan ranks fourth-worst in ERA, behind Jordan Romano, Mason Miller and Griffin Jax.

Saves + Holds Reliever Rankings

Here are my updated top 40 relievers for SV+H leagues.

Biggest Risers

Kyle Finnegan (RP – WSH) | +6

Kyle Finnegan has been excellent this season with a 2.41 ERA and 15 saves. However, his 1.34 WHIP and 21.5% strikeout rate show some of the downside in his profile. I have been cautious about moving him up the rankings to account for his floor, but when he’s currently in the top three in saves, after finishing in the top three last year, the numbers speak for themselves.

Justin Martinez (RP – ARI) | Unranked

Justin Martinez was 14th on my list before he was placed on the injured list (IL). However, he has since returned, and already has a hold to his credit. His strikeout rate is solid at 27.5%, but that could improve if his chase and whiff rates normalize closer to his career averages.

His walk rate is a concern at nearly 14%, however, he only allowed two walks in his first 10 outings. He did allow four free passes in the two games before landing on the IL, but the injury is most likely the cause.

Daniel Palencia (RP – CHC) | Unranked

Daniel Palencia has been a nice surprise for the Cubs, who have lacked reliable arms in the backend of their bullpen. He’s picked up each of the last two saves for the team and has only allowed runs in three of his outings on the year. He has a minimal sample size in the bigs, but his strikeout, walk and hard-hit rates are all improved

Biggest Fallers

Raisel Iglesias (RP – ATL) | -10

Raisel Iglesias has been nothing short of horrible for the Braves in 2025. His xERA (5.33) and xBA (.270) rank in the 11th and 23rd percentiles, respectively. He has allowed runs in 10 of his 21 appearances, and hasn’t had back-to-back scoreless outings since a four-outing scoreless stretch in early May.

It’s not just one thing going wrong for Iglesias, either. None of his four pitches (changeup, fastball, sinker, slider) allowed a batting average higher than .171 last season. This season, every pitch is allowing a significantly higher batting average. The fastball, in particular, his second-most-used pitch, is giving up a batting average of .263, 92 points higher than last season.

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