Emilio Pagan is dominating since returning from minors

Relief pitchers are the most volatile performers in baseball. They do their work in particularly small sample sizes, and you can never quite be sure what to expect from them in a given year. Hopefully they’ll repeat past success, or build on the first stages of a budding breakout, but just as often they can disappear into Quad-A oblivion.

The Oakland A’s took a chance on a relatively untested reliever last winter when they traded Ryon Healy to the Mariners for Emilio Pagan and a prospect. Pagan had put together a promising rookie year at age 26, and the A’s were hoping to see more of it. It was mostly low-leverage work, like middle relief and mop-up duty, but he generally retired the hitters…