The Padres’ Bullpen Ranks Among MLB’s Best When It Matters Most

The San Diego Padres' strong start to the 2025 season owes a significant debt to a bullpen that has been far more effective than it is dominant.

Through the first two months of the season, the Padres' relievers rank just 11th in FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching), a metric that takes away defense and luck to focus on what pitchers control: strikeouts, walks, and home runs. In theory, it’s one of the most accurate measures of how well a pitcher should be performing.

But when you look at Win Probability Added (WPA), which tracks how much a player increases (or decreases) his team’s chances of winning based on game context, the Padres' bullpen ranks third.

That gap tells a revealing story of clutch execution, and it's a big reason the Padres are off to one of their best starts in years. 

This is not a group overwhelming opponents inning after inning. It’s a group coming through in the biggest moments.

WPA doesn’t care about style points. It rewards pitchers for preserving leads and escaping jams when games hang in the balance. In that regard, San Diego’s bullpen has excelled. The team is 8-4 in one-run games, and many of those wins have come courtesy of shutdown innings from the relief corps under pressure.

They’re also fourth in the league in Clutch, a stat that captures exactly what it sounds like: performance when the game is on the line.

The numbers show that Padres relievers are not dominating by pure efficiency, but rather by rising to the moment. Their strikeout rates are solid, ranked 15th out of 30 teams. Their walk rates are inconsistent. But when the pressure is highest, they’ve delivered.

Three arms in particular have powered the bullpen’s strong showing: Jason Adam, Jeremiah Estrada, and Robert Suarez.

Jason Adam has quietly been one of the most valuable relievers in baseball. In 22 appearances, he holds a 4–0 record, a 1.54 ERA, and has racked up 12 holds over 23.1 innings. His 1.20 WPA reflects his frequent success in leverage spots. His bright red Baseball Savant metrics back it up: he ranks in the 98th percentile in expected ERA, 100th percentile in expected batting average, and above the 89th percentile in chase, whiff, and strikeout rates. The one blemish is his walk rate, which sits at the 22nd percentile, which helps explain his modest 3.22 FIP.

Jeremiah Estrada, a savvy waiver pickup before last season, has added a different dimension. Through 22 games, he’s posted a 2.66 ERA and struck out 31 batters in just 20.1 innings. With only four walks, his 2.70 FIP is one of the best in the bullpen, and his Baseball Savant metrics suggest it's no fluke. Estrada pairs excellent command of a 5% walk rate with elite swing-and-miss stuff, ranking highly in the 92nd percentile of whiff rate, 100th percentile in chase rate, and 99th percentile in strikeout rate.

Then there’s Robert Suarez, the team’s closer and arguably its most critical reliever. Suarez is 15-for-16 in save chances, with a 2.84 ERA across 19 innings. He has walked eight and struck out 21; decent numbers that look even better when considering his role in high-leverage spots. His individual 2.14 FIP is the best among Padres relievers, and his 1.31 WPA leads the staff. Suarez has posted elite numbers in expected BA at .198 and strikeout rate at 30%, but remains vulnerable to occasional lapses in command, with a walk rate of 11.6%, nearing the bottom of the league.

What makes this bullpen so interesting isn’t that it’s dominating statistically, but rather that it’s delivering situationally. A team can have elite strikeout and walk rates and still lose close games. The Padres are doing the opposite: overcoming flaws by winning the innings that count the most.

That may not be a sustainable formula over a full 162-game season. WPA is not predictive. Bullpens that post elite WPA numbers in the first half often regress if their underlying command or strikeout metrics don’t support it.

But for now, that’s not the Padres’ concern. They’re playing with a lead more often than not, and when the late innings arrive, their bullpen is holding up.

Not perfectly. Not always cleanly. But enough to win.

And in a division as competitive as the National League West, that’s all that matters, for now.