Thrown into the closer role very early in the season due to Jenrry Mejia's 80-game suspension for PEDs, Jeurys Familia has done nothing but dominant on the back end of an extremely talented New York Mets' pitching staff.

Familia showed tons of promise his rookie season in 2014 being that 8th inning anchor for Mejia late in games. He had a 2.21 ERA in 76 appearances and opponents were only batting .209 against him. His control greatly improved in the second half of last season and that prompted his name to be a late candidate for the NL Rookie of the Year award, which was eventually won by teammate Jacob deGrom

The emergence of Familia's dominance shouldn't come as any surprise, but what does come as a surprise is how smoothly he has transitioned from setup man to full blown shutdown closer. The amount of pressure a closer frequently endures in the 9th inning can be astronomically different than that of a setup man in the 8th, and this sometimes can have a psychological effect on late-inning relievers. Familia, though, has seemed to let this pressure have no effect on him as he has converted 24 out of 26 saves this season.

One thing that separates Familia from the rest of the closers in the MLB is that he has been asked multiple times this season to do what closer used to be asked to do - pitch more than one inning. And multiple times Familia has been thrown in the 9th & 10th inning of tie ball games. 

In 40.1 innings pitched this season Familia has the second-lowest ERA among closers in the MLB (1.12), second-lowest WHIP (0.89), and opposing hitters are only batting .171 against him which is the lowest of any closer in baseball. Unfortunately, these numbers went unnoticed and his dominance was ignored when he wasn't selected as a late-inning reliever for the 2015 MLB All-Star game.

Instead Jeurys Familia was propelled into the NL Final Vote contest where he is competing against the likes of Clayton Kershaw, Carlos Martinez, Johnny Cueto, and Troy Tulowitzki, who are all well-known players throughout the MLB. Familia, who is in his second full year at the Major League level, has yet to catapult into that spotlight and because of it he could be one of the biggest snubs of the 2015 All-Star game.

Final Vote voting is happening on Twitter until 4:00 PM EST on July 10th. All you have to do is go on, tweet anything you want and put "#VoteFamilia" after it. Each time you tweet this or retweet something with this hashtag you will be voting for Jeurys Familia to go to the All-Star game. 

Don't let a player who is the most dominant closer in baseball right now be left out of the Mid-Summer Classic

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About the author
Karl  Capen
Head MLB Editor. Die hard sports fan and avid baseball guru. Follow me on Twitter @Capen316