Hold (baseball)

The hold was invented in 1986 by John Dewan and Mike O'Donnell to give a statistical measure of the effectiveness of the vast majority of relief pitchers who are afforded few opportunities to close a game.

[2] In 2009, STATS LLC purchased PA SportsTicker,[citation needed] and the alternate definition is no longer in use.

While holds are not an official MLB statistic, they are increasingly visible in many box scores, including espn.com and MLB.com.

The career leaders are listed based on total holds according to MLB.com,[3] which only records the statistic from 1999 onwards.

Peralta surpassed the previous record of 40 holds set by Luke Gregerson in 2010 with the San Diego Padres.