Is Gabe Speyer left-handed? Yes. Is he a reliever? Yes. How is he? Yes. However, describing him as a good left-handed reliever would be a disservice. Describing someone as a left-handed reliever can come across as a red flag. It’s always been interpreted as implying that the pitcher is only for “lefties,” or that he’s a special-purpose weapon who can be called upon to be left-handed but needs to be pulled before he loses his natural advantage.
What I mean is perhaps best demonstrated by a couple of counterexamples: Josh Hader and Aroldis Chapman. Are they left-handed? Yes. Are they relievers? Yes. Are they good? Yes. But you really would never call them “good left-handed relievers.” They are just great relievers. (Of course, there are plenty of other things you could call these two, but I digress.) Spell was probably not as good as either of them, and he was only good in two years, interrupted by injuries, rather than an entire career. But at this point, Speyer has done well enough, and lasted long enough, to at least be talked about more like them and less like a glorified LOOGY.
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So it’s infuriating that, after being severely underrated, Speyer finally stepped into the national spotlight this October, but essentially all the talk revolved around his status as a lefty. Most notably, we have a week-long debate about how the Mariners can survive without Carey Carpenter. But Speyer is no expert, and while it’s nice to at least have a reputation now, that reputation ignores the changes he made to become one of the best relievers in the game, full stop.
If you really insist on left-handed qualifications, you have to describe him as elite, not just good. There were 362 pitchers who threw at least 20 innings last year. Gabe Speier has a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 21 to 1 when facing lefties; that number trails only one of 361 other pitchers, and that guy just won his second straight Cy Young Award. I won’t dwell on this: If Gabe Speier was just a left-handed specialist, you’d have to say he’s top-notch. While he was less efficient in 2024 due to playing injured, it was consistent with his 2023 results.
But he took a big step forward in 2025 and improved his ability against right-handers. Last year, 206 relievers threw at least 750 pitches, at least 100 of them to right-handed hitters. (I used some unusual thresholds to create the correct sample because it was hard to get the data I wanted when using IP minimums, but please bear with me as I continue to learn to code. Maybe Ryan will tutor me if you bother him. The important thing here is that the sample of pitchers I used here ended up being the correct pitchers if you look at the names.) Speier struck out 30.5% of the right-handers he faced and walked 6.9% of them. The strikeout rate minus walk rate was 23.6%, which is good by any standard. Ranked 31st among 206 relievers in the sample. In other words, in his weak sideSpeyer is better than 85% of his peers. Among the 30 pitchers ahead of him, Speyer’s .340 xwOBAcon is in the top half, so it’s not like he’s paying it forward by giving up big contact.
If all Spyer did last year was face right-handed hitters and everyone else faced both right- and left-handed hitters, Spyer’s FIP would rank in the 93rd percentile, two spots behind Andres Munoz and two spots ahead of Griffin Jaquez . There’s no question that Speyer is better against lefties than northies, but that’s a strength and a weakness — that’s a weakness, not a strength and a weakness. David Bowie was a better singer/songwriter than actor, but have you ever seen maze?
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Without going into too much detail, the big changes Speyer made aren’t hard to identify: Facing right-handers this year, he cut his sinker rate in half and his slider rate by a third, essentially doubling his four-seam usage rate. This is just another example of the Mariners relievers finding a pitch that works and using it more often.
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Putting his elite statistics against lefties with his still pretty good statistics against righties, Speyer’s 2025 FIP- is 57, which ranks 15th among 325 relievers who have pitched at least 20 innings. In the most important part of FIP, he ranks fourth in K%-BB%, putting him in the top five that also includes Mason Miller and Edwin Diaz, as well as Hader and Chapman. Not a good left-handed reliever, but just one of the best bullpen arms in the game.
To be sure, his centrality to lefties in the national conversation in October has more to do with how Dan Wilson manages an entire pitching staff to get tough lefties out than it does with Speyer’s talent. But the focus remains on Speyer’s bears. This is predictable: If there’s a theme in my article about Speyer, it’s that he’s underappreciated. I used his 2024 40-for-40 push to urge you to join his fan club, which of course you did, and earlier this year I made his case for an All-Star team, which of course he didn’t.
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But at least the country is talking about him. Justin Klugh expressed this sentiment while previewing Baseball Handbook’s ALDS: “Apparently, a guy named Gabe is also one of the best relievers in baseball.” It’s a reflection that Spire is underappreciated, but it’s a far cry from Jeff Sullivan’s only mention of Spire in his 1,500-word article on the Shelby Miller trade: “[Arizona] And Gabe Speier, he’s a player. “
Gabe Speyer deserves more respect, but he’s earned it by proving himself. Recall how disrespectful Carl Rowley was during Speyer’s first season with the team:
But Carl changed his mind. You can’t make a supercut like last year. If Speyer repeats in 2025, it will be the third year in four years that he has been one of the best relievers in the game. At some point, people have no choice but to notice.