The following is a list of annual leaders in saves in

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (A ...

(MLB), with separate lists for the

American League The American League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the American League (AL), is one of two leagues that make up Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada. It developed from the Western League, a minor league b ...

and the

National League The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team s ...

. The list includes several professional leagues and associations that were never part of MLB. In

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

, a save is credited to a

pitcher In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or dr ...

who finishes a game for the winning team under prescribed circumstances. Most commonly a

relief pitcher In baseball and softball, a relief pitcher or reliever is a pitcher who enters the game after the starting pitcher is removed because of fatigue, ineffectiveness, injury, or ejection, or for other strategic reasons, such as inclement weat ...

("reliever") earns a save by entering in the ninth inning of a game in which his team is winning by three or fewer runs and finishing the game by pitching one inning without losing the lead. The statistic was created by

Jerome Holtzman Jerome Holtzman (July 12, 1926 – July 19, 2008) was an American sportswriter known for his writings on baseball who served as the official historian for Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1999 until his death. Newspaper career Born in Chicago, I ...

in 1959 to "measure the effectiveness of relief pitchers" and was adopted as an MLB official statistic in 1969. The save has been retroactively measured for pitchers before that date. MLB recognizes the player or players in each league with the most saves each season. In retrospect, the five saves by Jack Manning meant he led the

in its inaugural year, while

Bill Hoffer William Leopold Hoffer (November 8, 1870 – July 21, 1959) was a professional baseball player. He was a right-handed pitcher over parts of six seasons (1895–1899, 1901) with the Baltimore Orioles, Pittsburgh Pirates and Cleveland Blues. For ...

was the

's first saves champion with three. Mordecai Brown was the first pitcher to record at least 10 saves in a season. Dan Quisenberry, Bruce Sutter,

Firpo Marberry Frederick "Firpo" Marberry (November 30, 1898 – June 30, 1976) was an American right-handed starting and relief pitcher in Major League Baseball from 1923 to 1936, most notably with the Washington Senators. The sport's first prominent relieve ...

, and Ed Walsh are the only pitchers to lead the league in saves five times (though Marberry and Walsh did so before 1969). Sutter is also tied with Harry Wright, Dan Quisenberry and Craig Kimbrel for the most consecutive seasons leading the league in saves with four. __TOC__

American League

National League

American Association

National Association

Union Association

Player's League

Federal League

Footnotes

*Recognized "major leagues" include the

and

and several defunct leagues—the

American Association American Association may refer to: Baseball * American Association (1882–1891), a major league active from 1882 to 1891 * American Association (1902–1997), a minor league active from 1902 to 1962 and 1969 to 1997 * American Association of Profe ...

, Federal League,

Players' League The Players' National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs, popularly known as the Players' League (PL), was a short-lived but star-studded professional American baseball league of the 19th century. The PL was formed by the Brotherhood of Prof ...

, and Union Association. The National Association is also included in this list as its records are included in statistics found on sites such as Baseball-Reference.com; however, it is not recognized as a major league by Major League Baseball.

References

;General * * ;Inline citations {{DEFAULTSORT:Major League Baseball Saves Champions Saves champions Saves