2019 Reliever Rankings

I remember back in mid-December when first putting together a reliever ranking that I eventually threw my hands up around the early-20s and comforting myself with the idea that things would be much clearer by the time draft season kicked into high gear.

I was wrong.

A few situations have become clearer, but what I didn’t quite anticipate was that even more teams would push toward a more open setup rather than committing to one guy. Even a team like Philadelphia that brought in David Robertson and his 137 career saves has acknowledged that he will still share some of the duties with Seranthony Dominguez.

Another factor was that closer-types I thought could earn a full-scale role signed on with teams where they will remain middle relief studs, namely Adam Ottavino and Jeurys Familia. Oh ya, and there’s the fact that a clear top 5 closer is still unsigned and will likely end up just displacing a current closer when he does finally land unless the Red Sox do an about face.

I’m of two minds on all this. On the one hand as an analytically-oriented person, I think it’s completely the right move for teams to be flexible with their ninth inning situation and play the matchups as games unfold. On the other hand as a fantasy baseball diehard, it has made tackling saves a complete fustercluck.

I’ve got 95 relievers for you. The first table of 50 focuses on announced closers, those in the aforementioned flexible situations, a handful on deck in sketchy situations, and a host of hurt guys who will be in line for saves once healthy. The other list of 45 is really for Holds leaguers, deep leaguers, and a watch list for shallow leaguers.

The historical volatility of closers tells us that several of the above guys will be out of the job by midseason making this next list of 45 worth knowing. The morbid thing about closer turnover is that even this upcoming list of 44 likely won’t even capture all the guys who nab 5+ saves this year, but I had to cut it off somewhere.