To qualify for this totally made-up award, a player must have earned at least $5 by the end of the season and accumulated at least $5 more than expected. This query logic allows for players who we already knew would be good, but we just didn’t know would be this good.

Finalists: Aaron Judge, Paul Goldschmidt, and Freddie Freeman

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Finalist #1: Paul Goldschmidt, Projected: $19, Earned: $34

The man has never really been bad, but if you had faded him in your rankings headed into his age 35 season due to some of the dips witnessed in 2o21, it’s likely that no one gave you a hard time.

If you didn’t fade, you came out with a player who exceeded his z-scores in every single category excluding stolen bases, but even his stolen base value was nearly average with 7 on the year. Here’s a look at his projected and earned value:

Goldschmidt has very little in his skills profile that would indicate an age decline. There is hardly anything that has gone through significant change or deviation from his career averages. Simply put, he has been one of the most steady and productive fantasy players in history and if you had him on your team, you were likely one of the top teams in your league.

—

Finalist #2: Freddie Freeman, Projected: $26, Earned: $33

Freeman was the 12th most valuable player listed on the preseason auction calculator (steamer, default settings) and the fourth best player with 2022 YTD settings. It should not be a surprise that he finished as a top-five hitter, but if you got Freeman and you didn’t overpay, you generated some good value. There was very little time this season that Freeman’s 15-game rolling wRC+ was below 100.

Freeman outperformed his z-scores in every category except for home runs. He was projected for 32 and he only hit 21. While his HR/FB rate may indicate that he was unlucky, his HardHit% declined this season and has been declining over the span of the last four seasons. Freeman ended the year with a 12% HR/FB while the league averaged 11.4%:

—

…and the award goes to…

Finalist #3: Aaron Judge, Projected: $27, Earned: $55

Are you surprised? Judge was slept on this season. I write that knowing his ADP was in the third round, but I think many fantasy managers were hesitant due to his injury history. Sure, Judge outperformed all of our projection systems’ home run totals by over 20, but did you see those 16 stolen bases?! This was one of the most dominant fantasy seasons by a single player in a long time. The only player to come close to his end-of-season $55 value was Miguel Cabrera’s 2014 $44.8 and Mookie Betts‘ 2018 $44.0. That’s just what happens when you break the American League (AL) single-season home run record and make a push for the AL triple crown. It is truly remarkable what Aaron Judge did this season from a fantasy perspective. To think that he could have been a 20-20 player with only four more steals is somewhat mind-boggling. Anyone who rostered Judge was taking a risk. Here’s a look at his “Five-Year Injury Log” courtesy of Ron Schandler’s 2022 Baseball Forecaster:

18 – 50 days, right wrist fracture

19 – 62 days strained L oblique

20 – 34 days strained R calf

21 – 12 days COVID-19

Fantasy managers who realized the potential in a healthy Aaron Judge season likely gambled and took him early. If you saw his $27 pre-season projected value and thought, “No, that can’t be right”, and you tacked on an additional $20, you would have still underpaid by $8. Simply amazing.

Congratulation to Aaron Judge on an amazing season and to any fantasy managers that rostered him. Next week, I’ll take a look at the overall largest differences in projections versus earned value with the Nobody Saw You Comin’ Award.

The 2022 version of Bullpen Report includes five different sections, as well as the closer chart, which can be found at the bottom of the page.

We will always include a link to the full Closer Depth Chart at the bottom of the Bullpen Report each day. It’s also accessible from the RosterResource drop-down menu and from any RosterResource page. Please let us know what you think.

1. Notable Workloads: Primary closers or valuable members of a closer committee who have been deemed unavailable or likely unavailable for the current day due to recent workload.
2. Injury News
3. Outlier Saves: Explanation for a non-closer earning a save during the previous day.
4. Committee Clarity: Notes on a closer committee that clarify a pitcher’s standing in the group.
5. Losing A Grip: Struggling closers who could be on the hot seat.

The “RosterResource” link will take you to the corresponding team’s RosterResource depth chart, which will give you a better picture of the full bullpen and results of the previous six days (pitch count, save, hold, win, loss, blown save).

Click HERE to view the full Closer Depth Chart.

Read the rest of this entry »

The 2022 version of Bullpen Report includes five different sections, as well as the closer chart, which can be found at the bottom of the page.

We will always include a link to the full Closer Depth Chart at the bottom of the Bullpen Report each day. It’s also accessible from the RosterResource drop-down menu and from any RosterResource page. Please let us know what you think.

1. Notable Workloads: Primary closers or valuable members of a closer committee who have been deemed unavailable or likely unavailable for the current day due to recent workload.
2. Injury News
3. Outlier Saves: Explanation for a non-closer earning a save during the previous day.
4. Committee Clarity: Notes on a closer committee that clarify a pitcher’s standing in the group.
5. Losing A Grip: Struggling closers who could be on the hot seat.

The “RosterResource” link will take you to the corresponding team’s RosterResource depth chart, which will give you a better picture of the full bullpen and results of the previous six days (pitch count, save, hold, win, loss, blown save).

Click HERE to view the full Closer Depth Chart.

Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a shock; Reynaldo López holds the sixth-best WAR and sixth-best FIP (as of games through 9/28/22) among qualified relievers in 2022. If you rostered him from the start of the season until now, which I’m sure you didn’t, you would have accumulated five wins, leveled out your ERA with a 2.84 contribution, and almost certainly lowered your overall WHIP thanks to his career-low 0.93.

In 2022 López lowered his BB% by nearly eight percentage points and increased his K% by over five percentage points when compared to his 2020 season. Just look at how his statcast percentile ranks have changed over that time:

How did he do it? I won’t dance around the answer trying to build tension, I’ll just deliver it up front; he became a reliever and started throwing harder. In 2022, he only started one game and in that start against the Texas Rangers on June, 10th, he only threw two innings, acting as an opener in what essentially was a bullpen game.

At the end of the 2020 season when López was 26 years old and holding a 6.49 ERA, the White Sox didn’t know what to do with the big righty. He started nine games and only threw 57.2 innings. In 2021, he bounced back and forth between reliever and starter roles, and in his reliever roles, he averaged two innings. In 2022, only 14 of his 59 games have gone over one inning. When a pitcher knows he is only going out for one inning, he can put a little more ompfff in his fastball:

It would certainly seem that throwing the ball harder on all of his four pitches used in 2022 has led to overall improvements, but each pitch on its own has improved in Whiff%. In addition, his overall out-of-zone swing % has improved.

So, is it that simple? Throw the ball harder for a shorter period of time and you’ll be better? You’ll double your WAR in a single season and you’ll more than double your WAR from two seasons ago? Decreasing his FIP has gone a long way when it comes to increasing his WAR. If a pitcher limit’s their home run totals while also limiting the walks they give up, they are on their way to an improved FIP.

But the real kicker here is that while he has lowered his FIP, increased his Whiff%, increased his Chase%, lowered his ERA, his WHIP, and his BB/9, López has held an unsustainably low HR/FB rate in 2022. He has only given up one home run on the year. Last year, he gave up 10. It’s not necessarily crazy for a reliever to give up only one home run. So far in 2022, there have been five qualified relievers who have given up one home run and 14 qualified relievers have given up only two home runs. But, scroll back up and look at López’s statcast percentiles and you will see that he still gives up hard contact.

In every year of his career, López has been above the average of balls in play that are fly balls. If he is still giving up hard contact, but in smaller samples as a reliever, and he is still putting the ball in the air more often than the average, yet he is no longer giving up home runs, what will happen?

Steamer projected 13 home runs to be hit off the Chicago righty, but to be fair, he was mostly projected as a starter. Regardless, let’s re-calculate his FIP on the year and throw in five more home runs for a total of six. His FIP is now 2.96 which is more in line with his xFIP of 3.27. Finally, here’s the point: Reynaldo López has gotten lucky this year with home runs. He has limited his walk rate and the home runs he has given up tremendously, but it’s not sustainable.

This may seem like an off-season article, but we’re nearly there. You may be looking through leaderboards and you may notice López’s excellent reliever WAR standing to finish off the year. You may notice his FIP. You may notice his velocity increase, his new role, and his improved whiff rate. Don’t get me wrong, López has had a nice season. It has been a great way to bounce back and become relevant once again. But, hidden under all those improvements, is fly ball/home run luck.

The 2022 version of Bullpen Report includes five different sections, as well as the closer chart, which can be found at the bottom of the page.

We will always include a link to the full Closer Depth Chart at the bottom of the Bullpen Report each day. It’s also accessible from the RosterResource drop-down menu and from any RosterResource page. Please let us know what you think.

1. Notable Workloads: Primary closers or valuable members of a closer committee who have been deemed unavailable or likely unavailable for the current day due to recent workload.
2. Injury News
3. Outlier Saves: Explanation for a non-closer earning a save during the previous day.
4. Committee Clarity: Notes on a closer committee that clarify a pitcher’s standing in the group.
5. Losing A Grip: Struggling closers who could be on the hot seat.

The “RosterResource” link will take you to the corresponding team’s RosterResource depth chart, which will give you a better picture of the full bullpen and results of the previous six days (pitch count, save, hold, win, loss, blown save).

Click HERE to view the full Closer Depth Chart.

Read the rest of this entry »

In some leagues, certainly not all but some, when a fantasy manager runs out of starts, they can still collect stats from relievers. Some ESPN leagues are set up this way. They have a limit on starts, but no limit on innings pitched. The rule is put in place so that managers cannot stream a pitcher every single day of the season, effectively juicing their strikeout and, possibly, win counting stats. This strategy would almost certainly ruin ratios and should not be utilized. I would be curious to see a simulation of how a fantasy team’s ERA/WHIP would pan out if they streamed an average starter every day of the season, but that’s for another time.

Today, I’m writing this article to simply show 10 relievers who are not closers and have recorded the most wins this season. For those who have reached a starter max but can still record reliever innings, pick up these pitchers now! For those who just need a few more wins, start utilizing (if you haven’t already, why?!) the Roster Resource Closer Depth Chart and stream these pitchers in favorable matchups or after a day of rest. Here are the non-closer relievers who lead MLB in wins this season:

Predicting reliever wins is a difficult task. In fact, Steamer (ROS) is over it. If we look at all relievers (0 IP min) from 2021 and all relievers (0 IP min) from 2022, the correlation coefficient between their win totals is 0.42, good for a 0.17 R-squared. I’m also including pitchers who recorded zero wins in both years, which inflates the R-squared slightly, but still seems informative.

The fact that we see very few, if any, relievers in the top right corner of the graph shows just how unrepeatable high win totals can be for relievers across multiple years. However, in season, out of all relievers who collected at least one win by mid-July in 2021, 57% of them collected a second win in the remainder of the year. Change that threshold to at least two wins by mid-July, and 67% of those pitchers collected at least one win in the back half of the season. Here’s a breakdown:

What can we make of this? Relievers who perform well enough to be awarded a win in the first half of the season continue to get chances in the second half of the season. This is probably still very random. If a reliever is used in the sixth, seventh, or eighth inning often, they are increasing their opportunities to snag wins. But even the correlation coefficient between first half of the season wins and second half of the season wins in 2021 was still only 0.38 (0.14 R-squared). Reliever wins are mostly random, just like the official scorer’s awarding of the win can sometimes be.

Take for example Diego Castillo’s most recent win which occurred on July 16th. First off, that was a long time ago and if you’re just looking at the table of relievers above and adding them to your roster, you’re not doing enough. Regardless, Castillo threw in a tied (2-2) bottom of the ninth inning against the Rangers. He walked a batter, forced a double-play ball, and then struck out the third batter he faced. The Mariners then scored in the top of the 10th and Matthew Festa shut the door to get the save, giving Castillo the win. However, Paul Sewald got three quick outs in the bottom of a tied (2-2) eighth inning and was awarded nothing! He didn’t even walk a batter as Castillo did. Castillo got the win, simply because his team scored in the half-inning after he pitched. Random.

If you’re here at FanGraphs reading about baseball, chances are you have heard about the randomness of the win. Some of you may have even dropped wins from your fantasy leagues’ roto categories. However, it remains a common category and I would bet that the vast majority of fantasy leagues still count the win. If that’s the case, and you could use a few more before the season ends, you should bank on the relievers who up until this point in the season have been recording wins. Just hope that you’re rostering them on the random day that they record another.

The 2022 version of Bullpen Report includes five different sections, as well as the closer chart, which can be found at the bottom of the page.

We will always include a link to the full Closer Depth Chart at the bottom of the Bullpen Report each day. It’s also accessible from the RosterResource drop-down menu and from any RosterResource page. Please let us know what you think.

1. Notable Workloads: Primary closers or valuable members of a closer committee who have been deemed unavailable or likely unavailable for the current day due to recent workload.
2. Injury News
3. Outlier Saves: Explanation for a non-closer earning a save during the previous day.
4. Committee Clarity: Notes on a closer committee that clarify a pitcher’s standing in the group.
5. Losing A Grip: Struggling closers who could be on the hot seat.

The “RosterResource” link will take you to the corresponding team’s RosterResource depth chart, which will give you a better picture of the full bullpen and results of the previous six days (pitch count, save, hold, win, loss, blown save).

Click HERE to view the full Closer Depth Chart.

Read the rest of this entry »

The 2022 version of Bullpen Report includes five different sections, as well as the closer chart, which can be found at the bottom of the page.

We will always include a link to the full Closer Depth Chart at the bottom of the Bullpen Report each day. It’s also accessible from the RosterResource drop-down menu and from any RosterResource page. Please let us know what you think.

1. 1. Notable Workloads: Primary closers or valuable members of a closer committee who have been deemed unavailable or likely unavailable for the current day due to recent workload.
   2. Injury News
   3. Outlier Saves: Explanation for a non-closer earning a save during the previous day.
   4. Committee Clarity: Notes on a closer committee that clarify a pitcher’s standing in the group.
   5. Losing A Grip: Struggling closers who could be on the hot seat.

The “RosterResource” link will take you to the corresponding team’s RosterResource depth chart, which will give you a better picture of the full bullpen and results of the previous six days (pitch count, save, hold, win, loss, blown save).

Click HERE to view the full Closer Depth Chart.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s like Dottie said, “Lay off the high ones.” But, it ain’t so easy. Just ask Kit. I feel like I’ve been seeing more swings and misses on pitches up and out of the zone. Here’s an example, courtesy of Pitching Ninja:

Dylan Cease, 97mph Elevated Fastball (ball) and 83mph Knuckle Curve (backwards K), individual pitches + overlay pic.twitter.com/VCCEvySYh5

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) September 9, 2022

Read the rest of this entry »

The 2022 version of Bullpen Report includes five different sections, as well as the closer chart, which can be found at the bottom of the page.

We will always include a link to the full Closer Depth Chart at the bottom of the Bullpen Report each day. It’s also accessible from the RosterResource drop-down menu and from any RosterResource page. Please let us know what you think.

1. Notable Workloads: Primary closers or valuable members of a closer committee who have been deemed unavailable or likely unavailable for the current day due to recent workload.
2. Injury News
3. Outlier Saves: Explanation for a non-closer earning a save during the previous day.
4. Committee Clarity: Notes on a closer committee that clarify a pitcher’s standing in the group.
5. Losing A Grip: Struggling closers who could be on the hot seat.

The “RosterResource” link will take you to the corresponding team’s RosterResource depth chart, which will give you a better picture of the full bullpen and results of the previous six days (pitch count, save, hold, win, loss, blown save).

Click HERE to view the full Closer Depth Chart.

Read the rest of this entry »