Most Blown Saves in MLB History

The ninth inning of a Major League Baseball game is often described as the most agonizing three outs in professional sports. For a closer, the margin between triumph and disaster is razor-thin.

When a relief pitcher successfully shuts down the opposing team, they secure a save, earning accolades and cementing their role as a high-leverage anchor. But when they fail, they incur a statistic that carries a unique psychological weight: the blown save.

In professional sports analytics, few metrics are as misunderstood or as paradoxical as the blown save. To the casual observer, a high cumulative total of blown saves is a mark of incompetence—a clear signal of a pitcher who falters under pressure.

However, a deeper, data-driven analysis reveals a completely different reality. The relievers who have accumulated the most blown saves in baseball history are not the worst pitchers to have played the game; rather, they are often the most durable, trusted, and elite performers to ever step onto the mound.

This paradox is a direct byproduct of workload, longevity, and the structural parameters of late-inning usage.

What Exactly is a Blown Save? The Technical Definition

Before examining the historic leaders and modern figures of this metric, it is essential to establish its precise mathematical and rule-based parameters. A blown save occurs when a relief pitcher enters a game in a designated save situation and subsequently allows the tying run to score.

To fully unpack this definition, one must understand what constitutes a “save situation”:

• A pitcher must enter the game with a lead of no more than three runs and pitch for at least one inning.
• Or, they must enter the game with the tying run either on base, at bat, or on deck.
• Or, they must pitch effectively for at least three innings, regardless of the run differential.

If a relief pitcher enters under any of these conditions and the opposing team scores a run that ties the game, a blown save is charged. Importantly, the rule features several key nuances that are frequently missed by casual fans:

• The Inning is Irrelevant: A blown save is not restricted to the ninth inning. If a middle reliever enters in a save situation in the seventh or eighth inning and surrenders the tying run, they are charged with a blown save.
• Losses are Not Required: A pitcher can blow a save without taking a loss. If the tying run scores but the pitcher’s team later wins the game, the reliever is still charged with the blown save but does not receive a loss in the box score.
• Multiple Blown Saves Can Occur in a Single Game: Because any reliever entering a save situation can blow it, a single game can feature multiple blown saves across a bullpen before a final decision is reached.

The Missing Historical Record: An Unofficial History

For fans trying to research the definitive, all-time historic leaderboard for this metric, they will quickly run into a major hurdle. Major League Baseball does not officially track “blown saves” as a permanent historical statistic.

While saves became an official statistic in 1969, blown saves were only tracked officially in box scores much later. Consequently, there is no official all-time career leader list curated by the league’s central database.

To reconstruct the historical record, analysts and major data providers must rely on unofficial, retroactively calculated career lists.

This historical gap complicates the public understanding of relief pitching, forcing fans to rely on independent databases to compare the achievements and failures of past generations with modern bullpen specialists.

Despite the lack of an official league leaderboard, retroactively compiled lists yield a striking insight: the relief pitchers with the most career blown saves are almost exclusively members of the Baseball Hall of Fame or players with exceptionally long, highly successful careers.

The Durability Paradox: Why Elite Longevity Breeds Late-Inning Failure

How can a pitcher be considered great if they have surrendered dozens of game-tying runs? The answer lies in the durability paradox.

In the modern bullpen era, relief pitchers are highly volatile assets. Most relievers experience short, unpredictable careers marked by sudden fluctuations in velocity, control, and effectiveness.

A mediocre reliever who struggles will quickly find themselves demoted to low-leverage roles or outright released, preventing them from ever facing another save situation.

In contrast, an elite closer is given the ball night after night, season after season, to protect slim leads. Pitchers who sustain elite careers over 15 to 20 years naturally accumulate a massive volume of save opportunities.

Because no human pitcher is perfect, even those with exceptionally high conversion rates will inevitably experience failures over a long tenure. Longevity guarantees that a closer will blow leads.

To accumulate 80, 90, or over 100 blown saves in a career, a pitcher must possess the physical durability and mental fortitude to remain in the closer role for nearly two decades.

The list of unofficial career leaders is filled with legends who reached these massive totals simply because they had massive totals of save opportunities:

• Lee Smith: A dominant force who pitched for 18 seasons, finishing his career with 478 saves across 1,022 games pitched. Because of this immense workload, Smith accumulated an estimated 80 to over 100 unofficial career blown saves, alongside his historic save total.
• John Franco: A highly durable left-handed closer who excelled for two decades, compiling over 400 saves and similarly registering over 80 unofficial blown saves.
• Francisco Rodríguez: Known for his high-strikeout stuff and longevity, Rodríguez joined the exclusive club of closers who accumulated the most unofficial blown saves due to a massive career volume of save opportunities.

For these legendary pitchers, the blown save was not a sign of chronic failure, but rather a necessary statistical tax paid to achieve historically elite volume.

Unpacking the Metrics of All-Time Greats

To put this statistical paradox into perspective, we can analyze the career numbers of some of the most dominant pitchers in baseball history since 1970.

The data shows a direct relationship between high game appearances, massive save totals, and the inevitable accumulation of late-game variance.

Mariano Rivera: The Gold Standard of Efficiency

Often regarded as the greatest closer to ever play the game, Mariano Rivera finished his career with 652 saves in 1,115 games pitched. This yields a remarkable saves-per-game (SV/G) ratio of 0.58.

• Innings Pitched: 1,283.2
• Earned Run Average (ERA): 2.21
• Walks Plus Hits per Inning Pitched (WHIP): 1.00
• Strikeouts: 1,173

Despite maintaining a highly efficient 2.21 ERA and 1.00 WHIP over 19 seasons, even Rivera’s legendary cut-fastball was not immune to late-game failure.

Rivera experienced his share of blown leads over his long tenure. His presence near the top of historical workload lists proves that even the absolute best closer in baseball history had to endure dozens of blown saves to compile his record-breaking 652 saves.

Trevor Hoffman: The National League Counterpart

Matching Rivera’s efficiency on the senior circuit was Trevor Hoffman, who compiled 601 saves over 1,035 games pitched. Like Rivera, Hoffman maintained an identical saves-per-game ratio of 0.58.

• Innings Pitched: 1,089.1
• ERA: 2.87
• WHIP: 1.06
• Strikeouts: 1,133

With 601 saves and over 1,000 game appearances, Hoffman’s career longevity guaranteed that he would experience blown saves. Yet, his 2.87 ERA and 1.06 WHIP demonstrate that he remained an elite late-inning weapon for nearly two decades.

Lee Smith: High-Volume Durability

Before Rivera and Hoffman shattered records, Lee Smith was the premier closer of his era. Smith compiled 478 saves in 1,022 games pitched, establishing a saves-per-game ratio of 0.47.

• Innings Pitched: 1,289.1
• ERA: 3.03
• WHIP: 1.26
• Strikeouts: 1,251

Smith’s slightly higher ERA of 3.03 and WHIP of 1.26 compared to Rivera and Hoffman show the evolving nature of the closer role. However, his 1,251 strikeouts and 1,289.1 innings pitched underscore a massive career workload that naturally resulted in high blown save totals.

Volatility at the Extremes: Single-Season Team and Individual Records

While career blown save leaders are defined by their durability, single-season blown save records represent acute bullpen volatility and structural distress.

When a bullpen repeatedly fails to protect leads within a single calendar year, the statistical accumulation can reach historic proportions.

The Single-Season Team Record: The 2021 Washington Nationals

The modern Major League Baseball record for the most blown saves by a team in a single season belongs to the Washington Nationals, who accumulated 37 blown saves during the 2021 season.

This historic mark of 37 blown saves highlights a bullpen in deep transition. For a team to blow 37 leads in a single year, it requires a combination of a highly productive offense that constantly creates save situations, paired with a relief corps that lacks a reliable, shutdown option at the back end of games.

Individual Single-Season Benchmarks

For individual relievers, a single-season blown save total rarely reaches career-altering proportions because managers will quickly remove a struggling pitcher from high-leverage roles.

However, when a closer is struggling but a team lacks alternative bullpen options, that closer may be pushed through their difficulties.

Historically, individual single-season blown saves usually peak around 14 to 17 times.

This peak only occurs when a struggling closer is given heavy work and a continuous stream of late-inning opportunities despite their ongoing performance issues.