As a fantasy community, we liked Kenley Jansen and Craig Kimbrel a lot more than all of the other projected closers on draft day this year. Jansen and Kimbrel lapped the field of relievers in Roto value (per ESPN’s Player Rater) in 2017, and owners typically rewarded them with one of the first 50 overall picks. Aroldis Chapman, Corey Knebel and the most popular of the remaining relievers had to wait a bit longer to get their names called (or clicked on).
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In a postseason where David Price, Clayton Kershaw and Luis Severino have hit some snags, it’s hard not to be impressed by the recent showings of Walker Buehler. In his first-ever postseason appearance against the Braves on Oct. 7, the 24-year-old rebounded from a five-run second inning to toss three perfect frames.

On Monday night, Buehler was outdueled by Jhoulys Chacin, but he cruised through his first five innings, allowing a run on two hits with eight strikeouts. While the Brewers padded their lead in the sixth and seventh innings, the two-run homer by Orlando Arcia that doubled their advantage to 4-0 had a hit probability of just 22 percent, according to Baseball Savant.
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In my previous column, I looked at what went right and what went wrong (mostly wrong) with my team in the Tout Wars mixed auction league in regard to the five hitting categories. This time, I am turning my attention to my team’s performance in the pitching categories. With a fourth-place finish in these categories, it’s a less painful exercise than the last one, but not much separated my team from the two teams tied for eighth place. I was nowhere close to Tim Heaney’s league-leading 68 points, so this account of my pitching staff will include some cautionary tales.
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It’s always more fun to do a review of one’s fantasy team when the squad wins the league or at least seriously contends for the title. That was not the case with my team in this year’s Tout Wars 15-team mixed auction league. However, my seventh-place finish offers an opportunity to take away plenty of positive and negative lessons to consider before draft day next year.
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In most drafts, I hit a point where I look at my queue and the remaining player pool, and I’m not excited about any of my options. I am currently participating in one of Justin Mason’s 2EarlyMock drafts, and as we enter the final rounds, I have yet to have that feeling. A number of players went in the middle rounds whom I had stashed in my queue several rounds before they were taken. The ones that I drafted felt like tremendous bargains, and the ones that I missed left me envious.
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It won’t likely come as a shock that, as we have one of our final opportunities to stream pitchers, there are few widely-available options worthy of our trust. In his recent piece on starting pitcher streaming options for the final weekend, Nick Pollack identified three pitchers from Friday’s slate who could be available and have some appeal. However, none of the three are likely to be on waivers in deeper formats.

In this column, I typically consider only pitchers who have an ownership rate of 25 percent or lower in Fantrax leagues, and even with setting the bar for availability fairly high, a couple of the pitchers featured here are at least worthy of consideration for your Friday rotation.
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There are a number of TBDs still listed for starting pitchers on Wednesday’s slate. The Orioles still need a starter for Game 1 in their doubleheader at Boston, and the Astros, Padres and Giants have yet to announce their starters. The same goes for the Rays, but that’s true for three out of every five games for them. It would be Jalen Beeks‘ turn to be their primary pitcher, but he has not lasted more than three innings in any of his last five appearances dating back to Aug. 29. Even if Beeks is at his best against the Yankees, it is doubtful that he will pitch enough innings to make a difference for your fantasy squad.
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With a 15.4 percent swinging strike rate, 32.6 percent strikeout rate, 5.3 percent walk rate and 24.1 percent soft contact rate, Trevor May has been doing just about everything you would want to see from a closer. Yet Paul Molitor has been faithfully sticking with Trevor Hildenberger as his closer in recent weeks, even with the latter Trevor posting a 5.74 ERA since the Twins traded Fernando Rodney to the Athletics.
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In Thursday morning’s Bullpen Report, Greg Jewett noted that the just-activated Aroldis Chapman was going to get eased back into the closer’s role for the Yankees. In his first appearance in nearly a month, Chapman came in to pitch the eighth inning with a two-run deficit against the Red Sox on Thursday night, but there was nothing about it that looked like “easing.” His first pitch resulted in a Rafael Devers line drive single, and two batters later, Devers moved into scoring position on a Jackie Bradley Jr. walk. After striking out the struggling Sandy Leon, Chapman put the Yankees three more runs in the hole by serving up a slider that Mookie Betts turned on for a home run.
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With the countdown of games left winding down and the stakes getting higher, there are actually some intriguing pitchers to be found on waivers in the vast majority of leagues. But is there any enough reward to balance the risk with any of the widely-available ones who are scheduled to start Friday?

Here are the eight most-available starters or primary pitchers from Friday’s slate. I have been using a 25 percent ownership rate on Fantrax as a cutoff point for inclusion in these reports, but I extended it by a percentage point, just so I could write about Ian Kennedy.
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