Bullpen Report (Sort Of): July 12, 2019

Thursday night’s schedule wasn’t so much of a slate as a pebble. The Rangers’ 5-0 win over the Astros was the only game on the first night of the second half, and it was a closer-free affair featuring five low-leverage relief appearances.

The only reliever worthy of mention was the Astros’ Cy Sneed, who did the bulk of the mopping up after Framber Valdez, who retired only two of the nine batters he faced. Sneed gave up just one run in five innings while striking out seven batters.

As this game didn’t contain any developments that were game-changers for us fantasy owners, Sneed’s performance got me thinking about long relievers in general. Back in the offseason, I was thinking they could be a market inefficiency to be exploited in fantasy. With starters trending towards fewer innings and late-inning roles getting fuzzier, I thought there could be value in rostering relievers who could pile up 80-plus innings with a decent strikeout rate and good ratios.

That hasn’t turned out to be as much of a thing as I thought it would be. Liam Hendriks is the closest to fitting the fantasy-relevant long-reliever model. He threw 48.2 relief innings in the first half (plus two innings as an opener), racking up 63 strikeouts to go along with a 1.24 ERA and 1.03 WHIP. Hendriks was too good to be confined to his prior role, as he has graduated to being the Athletics’ closer. There’s not much of a bargain to be had with him, and as long as he continues to close, he may not pitch as many innings.

Even if Hendriks had not picked up five saves, he would still rank as a top 30 reliever, ahead of Raisel Iglesias, Edwin Diaz and Greg Holland. Other low-save relievers who rank among the top 30 relief-eligible pitchers on ESPN’s Player Rater are Brandon Workman (17th), John Gant (20th), Scott Oberg (24th), Julio Urias (25th) and Ryan Pressly (27th). All but Urias have thrown at least 39 innings, though he is the only one who could rightly be called a long reliever. All are widely available in ESPN, CBS and Yahoo leagues.

For those who are thinking of picking Oberg up, his inclusion in this group should be a comfort. Coming out of the All-Star break, it’s not clear who the Rockies’ closer is. It seemed to be trending towards Oberg, but they have not had a ninth-inning save situation since June 29, so it’s hard to know where Bud Black might stand now. Even if Wade Davis regains control of the closer role, Oberg has a strong enough skill set and large enough workload to be valuable without saves.

The same goes for Workman, who seemed to be edging towards the Red Sox’s closer job but will soon take a back seat to Nathan Eovaldi. Strikeouts should be no problem for Workman, but his 1.79 ERA and 1.04 WHIP have received a lot of help from a .169 BABIP. He may not need to be as stingy on balls in play in the second half, since his 17.3 percent walk rate should regress. His 58.6 percent F-Strike% is in line with his career rate, and there’s nothing wrong with his 30.2 percent O-Swing%.

Urias might look like the ideal long reliever right now, as he closed out the first half by not allowing an earned run over his last eight appearances (including a three-inning spot start), which spanned 18 innings over 33 days. He did compile a 12.1 percent SwStr% and a 26.2 percent K%, but Urias induces a lot of swings, so his strikeout rate could be dampened by a low called strike rate going forward. He may also need to improve on the 52.7 percent F-Strike% from that period if he is to keep his walk rate and WHIP in check.

Three non-closers who have emerged more recently as fantasy-viable relief options are Colin Poche, Yusmeiro Petit and Richard Rodriguez. Barely a month removed from his major league debut, Poche quickly earned some high-leverage assignments, and with the Rays’ closer situation in flux, he may not be widely available for long. It’s worth targeting him in deeper formats now, as he could be an elite reliever for strikeouts (40.0 percent K%) with an ability to induce chases and throw first-pitch strikes. Especially if the Rays give him sufficient innings, he won’t need saves to help owners.

Petit has long been a workhorse and a WHIP specialist, and the A’s righty may have even more appeal now that he is throwing more sliders. Through June 9, only 15.1 percent of his pitches were sliders, but since then, he has thrown sliders at a 24.6 percent rate while posting a 32.7 percent strikeout rate.

Rodriguez has not given up a run for the Pirates since May 30. He has 15 strikeouts in the 17.1 innings he has thrown since then, which is not a great rate, but the quantity of innings has helped to bulk up the total. Much of his success can be chalked up to a surge in grounders. Rodriguez had previously displayed distinct flyball tendencies, but during his scoreless streak, he has compiled a 55.1 percent ground ball rate, and two-thirds of them have been pulled. It’s a risk to bank on Rodriguez continuing this trend given his prior history, but he is at least worth tracking over the initial weeks of the second half.