In honor of Kevin Gregg, I played around with Baseball Reference’s Play Index and came up with a list of closers with the highest ERA. More specifically, these are the pitchers with the most saves in a season among those with an adjusted ERA of 70 or less.
Player SV ERA+ ERA Year Age +----+-----------------+--+----+------+----+---+ 1 Shawn Chacon 35 69 7.11 2004 26 2 Mike Williams 28 69 6.14 2003 33 3 Derrick Turnbow 24 66 6.87 2006 28 4 Jose Mesa 24 61 6.52 2003 37 5 Brad Lidge 23 60 7.21 2009 32 6 Matt Capps 21 64 6.41 2009 25 7 Rob Dibble 19 62 6.48 1993 29 8 Dave Smith 17 65 6.00 1991 36 9 Willie Hernandez 15 67 5.74 1989 34 10 Darold Knowles 15 66 5.81 1975 33
Only 2004 Shawn Chacon of (you guessed it) the Colorado Rockies, breaks the 30 save mark. He had a 1-9 record to go with his 7.11 ERA.
Five more over 20 and it pretty much dissolves after that.
In 1998, Mark Wohlers of the Braves managed to get 8 saves in 27 games with an ERA in the double digits (10.18)