Mason Miller is a closing pitcher for the San Diego Padres, in which he and JP Spears were recently acquired from the Oakland Athletics, in 2025 for top prospect Leo De Vries and a few other prospects. The Padres knew they were getting a great closer with an elite fastball that can reach over 104 MPH and a nasty breaking slider. So far in the season, Miller has played significantly above expectations.
Miller has proved to be a caliber starter after straight dominance performances against the teams he’s played. A large number of fans believe that this dominant start to the season could be Miller’s new walkout song of the 2026 season. “Blind” by Korn has been a very popular song since its release and is gaining more popularity since Miller uses it as his walkout song. Miller was awarded the nickname “The Reaper” in early 2024, living up to the name this season. As of May 5, 2026, Miller has only appeared in 16 games, already with 11 games saved. This has helped the Padres to a 20-13 record so far, making them one of the hottest teams in baseball. Through all of April, and so far into May, Miller has only allowed seven hits throughout the season, along with 32 Ks. Miller has easily been responsible for a majority of the Padres’ wins with his dominant performance.
Although Miller is having an excellent season, with him being a reliever, it makes his odds pretty low at winning the Cy Young. Being in the NL, there is good competition for Miller, with great starting pitchers such as Paul Skenes or Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Starting pitchers receive much more playing time than relief pitchers because of having more innings to pitch. Starting pitchers usually win the Cy Young, because the more innings means more pitches, and more pitches mean more strikeouts. The Cy Young is an award given to the pitcher with the best stats, and starting pitchers usually have much better stats than relief pitchers because of the increased amount of IP.
However, a relief pitcher winning the Cy Young is not out of the question. In 2003, Dodgers’ relief pitcher Eric Gagne won the Cy Young award. Being the only relief pitcher to win the award in the 21st century. Gagne pitched incredibly, with 55 save opportunities, he converted on all of them, winning the award. Miller is sort of mirroring Gagne’s stats, with 11 saves with a 1.10 ERA with 32 Ks in just 16 GP as of May 5, 2026. Miller has only allowed seven hits and two runs in his 16 GP, making him a pretty shutout pitcher.
In only his fourth season at 27 years old, Miller is showing skills that are incredible for his young age and his little experience in the big leagues. By showing shades of Gagne this season, he could have the potential to be as dominant as him. The season just started, but, at this rate, anything is possible, including the potential second Cy Young relief pitcher of the century.
