Bryan Baker has already done enough in Tampa Bay to force a serious place in the Rays’ record book.
That’s a pretty wild turn for a pitcher the club picked up from the Baltimore Orioles on July 10, 2025 in exchange for a competitive balance draft pick, No. 37 overall, a pick the Rays would later re-acquire in the Shane Baz trade. Baker arrived as a useful but fairly ordinary late-inning arm, the kind of reliever teams like to have around but don’t necessarily build around. By mid-August 2026, he’s become MLB’s saves leader with 34, an All-Star, and the owner of a new franchise mark for consecutive saves.
The journey to this point has been anything but straight. Baker was drafted by the Colorado Rockies in the 11th round out of the University of North Florida in 2016, reached the majors with the Toronto Blue Jays in 2021, and later landed with Baltimore after a waiver claim. He posted a 3.52 ERA in 42 appearances for the Orioles in 2025 before the trade to Tampa Bay.
His first run with the Rays wasn’t clean, either. He put up a 4.75 ERA in 30⅓ innings after the deal. Then the Rays did what they so often do with pitchers: they narrowed the shape of the job and pushed into what works.
Under Tampa Bay’s pitching development staff, Baker ramped up his changeup usage - like most Rays pitchers this year - and effectively became a two-pitch reliever. Out of 729 pitches thrown, he’s gone to the slider just 26 times all season.
The payoff has been huge. Baker’s high release point draws comparisons to Pete Fairbanks, while his mirrored changeup has created what FanGraphs called “ a devastating tunneling effect.” Through early August, he owns a 1.55 ERA, a 0.84 WHIP and 34 saves in 46⅓ innings, with a 96th percentile chase rate.
His biggest milestone came on August 8, 2026, when he converted his 23rd straight save chance against the Seattle Mariners and moved past Fernando Rodney’s franchise record from 2012. Afterward, mlb.com reported that teammates wanted Baker to tilt his hat to the side in tribute to Rodney, though he declined.
Kevin Kelly called him “Mr. Consistency” in front of the media.
Baker, a childhood Rays fan, said it was an honor to be mentioned with a player he grew up watching often, and he brushed aside the individual achievement by calling saves a “team stat.”
The numbers on the franchise leaderboard tell the rest of the story. Baker’s 35 career saves already rank ninth in Rays history, and his 34 saves this season also sit ninth on the club’s single-season list. The all-time Rays saves chart is topped by Roberto Hernández with 101, followed by Alex Colomé at 95, Pete Fairbanks at 90, and Fernando Rodney at 85.
On the single-season side, Rodney’s 48 saves in 2012 remain the standard, ahead of Colomé’s 47 in 2017 and Rafael Soriano’s 45 in 2010. Baker, with 42 games left in the regular season, is 15 saves away from that mark.
He’d move up to eighth on the career list by tying Esteban Yan’s 42. After that, the climb gets interesting fast.
Rodney’s 2012 season - 48 saves, a 0.60 ERA and Cy Young consideration - remains the high-water mark for a Rays closer. Fairbanks has offered the most sustained high-leverage reliability over multiple years. Baker’s current pace puts him in that company, and the playoffs could add another layer, especially with the franchise postseason saves record sitting at just three, shared by Fairbanks and Diego Castillo in the 2020 playoffs.
For now, Baker has already given the Rays a dependable ninth-inning weapon, a franchise record, and an All-Star nod in his childhood uniform. That’s enough to make this a meaningful chapter in Rays history. How far it goes from here will decide whether it becomes one of the great Rays bullpen stories or just one very memorable run.
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