Louis Varland Is Having One of the Best Closing Seasons in Blue Jays History

I’m sure you’ve heard by now that Louis Varland has been the best reliever in the American League this season. At least according to ERA, xERA, FIP, fWAR, bWAR, and WPA.

He’d likely be up there in saves as well if he didn’t have to wait until his 13th appearance of the season to get his first save opportunity, but right now he’ll settle for third place in the American League with his 28 – eight behind the Rays’ Bryan Baker’s 34, which lead baseball.

Aside from his single slip-up against the Chicago Cubs when Alex Bregman hit a homer to snatch another save from Varland’s grasp, the ninth inning has been almost relaxing for Jays fans since Varland took over the closer job full-time towards the end of April.

He’s been dominant to a point where it’s hard to quantify how comfortable it feels when Varland is pitching. That's true regardless of how slim the margin is between holding onto a lead for the win or giving up a couple of runs for a loss.

That word “dominant” gets thrown around a lot. Sometimes more deservedly than others. If we look back through 50 years of Blue Jays baseball, to this point, Varland’s 2026 is one of a handful of reliever seasons that we can comfortably say has been dominant.

All of the following comes with the caveat that Varland is just a little over three-quarters of the way through this season. The reality is, reliever statistics are volatile because of how small the samples they work within are. A few blow-ups or even just a slightly more average finish to 2026 could turn his dominant year into just a good one.

With that being said, there’s no other way to start this conversation than by stating the fact that Varland’s current 1.26 ERA and 355 ERA+ are both the best by a Blue Jay in a season in which he saved at least 20 games.

ERA is no longer the one-size-fits-all pitching statistic we once considered it to be, especially not for relievers, but it’s impossible to tell the story of an elite pitching season without displaying that a guy made sure that opponents simply couldn’t earn runs against him.

If Varland stays on pace, his 2026 will slide ahead of B.J. Ryan’s fabled 2006 for the best ERA among Blue Jays to convert 20 saves. Ryan’s 2006 has been thrown around in conversations as the best Jays closer season of all-time, and looking back at it 20 years later, It’s pretty easy to see why. 

Perhaps the most eye-popping number from Ryan’s ‘06 is the 0.857 WHIP. Part of what makes a fanbase trust a closer is not just if he gets the job done and converts the saves, but how he does it. If there’s a ton of traffic en route to a zero, or he gives up a couple runs and turns a three-run lead into a one-run win, it’s not exactly the same as coming in and retiring three straight to secure a win.

No Blue Jays closer has ever had a season where they limited traffic as effectively as B.J. Ryan did in 2006, but Louis Varland is on pace for the franchise’s ninth closer season with a WHIP under 1.000. If Varland can maintain through the rest of the season, he’ll join Ryan’s ‘06, Roberto Osuna’s ‘15, ‘16 and ‘17, Casey Janssen’s ‘12 and ‘13, and Tom Henke’s ‘87 and ‘91.

No Blue Jays closer has ever converted 20 saves in a season without blowing at least one, but two guys have limited it to just one blown save: Jordan Romano in 2021 and Ken Giles in 2019.

Varland’s aforementioned blown save to Bregman and the Cubs makes it so he can’t be the first Jays closer to go perfect in save opportunities, but it’s still possible he can become the third to miss just one.

Varland has already thrown 64.1 innings in 58 appearances through 126 Blue Jays games this year, putting him on pace for 82.2 innings for the season. If he surpasses that 80-inning mark, he’ll be the first closer of the 2020s, and fifth since 2010 to get to that mark.

A Blue Jay hasn’t gotten to 20 saves and 80 innings since Duane Ward in 1991, when Ward threw 107.1 in 81 appearances.

Even if Varland doesn’t quite reach that kind of threshold, doing what he’s doing in this era, on this kind of volume, is almost unheard of.

I wanted to lay out as much of a comparison to other elite Blue Jays closer seasons as possible before I broke out WAR, but it’s impossible to have this conversation in 2026 without it.

I’m using bWAR rather than fWAR because it’s less predictive and relies more on the actual results, and it is much easier to compare across multiple players and multiple seasons.

Louis Varland, with 3.0 bWAR through 126 team games, is already having a top-six Blue Jays closer season of all-time. Henke’s ‘90 and Ward’s ‘93 seasons both saw them finish with 3.0 bWAR. Henke racked up 3.3 in ‘87 and 3.4 in ‘89, and of course B.J. Ryan’s ‘06 is the best in Jays history at 3.6 bWAR.

Pacing out WAR is basically never that simple, and with closers – whose usage depends pretty heavily on their team being up one, two, or three runs after eight innings – it’s even less simple.

There’s still a long way to go, and a lot of things are going to have to continue going right, but if they do, we’re not just talking about one of the best Blue Jays closer seasons of all-time. We’re talking about one of the best closer seasons of this century. 

At least according to bWAR.

Jonathan Papelbon’s 5.0-win 2006 is well out of reach, and Emmanuel Clase’s ‘24 (4.4), Blake Treinen’s ‘18 (4.4), and Mariano Rivera’s ‘04 (4.2) and ‘08 (4.3) likely are too.

But if Varland can find a way to 4.0 bWAR, he’ll be just the 10th pitcher to do that and save at least 25 games in a season since 2000. Of course, he’d have to be as good or better in the final quarter of this season as he’s been over the first three.

Maybe it's not likely, but Varland has put himself in a spot where it’s possible, and with the Blue Jays finding their second wind in the American League Wild Card race, having Louis Varland to close out some of the tight games they're sure to find themselves in down the stretch is like having an ace in the hole.