Any day now, Zach Sanders (@zvsanders) will come out with his end-of-season FAVRz/Fantasy Rankings. Look out for them.

For this post, I will provide three sets of rankings using that same approach (summed up z-scores) for our end-of-season “Bullpen Report: Expected Fantasy Rankings”. The Bullpen Report team should follow up with role reports for each division in the coming weeks as well.

The first set of rankings you will find almost anywhere: on the fantasy sites that you use, via player-raters, etc. It’s the standard 5×5 fantasy value (Wins, ERA, WHIP, SO and Saves). The second grid will be for 6×6 leagues (addition of Holds). The last grid will be for 5×5 and 6×6 leagues, but instead of standard ERA and WHIP, we’ll look at rankings if you were to use expected ERA (via SIERA) and adjusted (adj)WHIP through BABIP differential: I will explain below.

1) 5×5 Rankings (Wins, ERA, WHIP, SO and Saves) – actual 5×5 value in column 4; expected 5×5 value in column 5:

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– Joaquin Benoit is back baby! San Diego’s closer notched his first save since coming off the disabled list. He did it in style, too, pitching a 1-2-3 ninth inning. The righty looked fresh, too, sporting a fastball that sat between 96-98 mph on the gun. While Benoit pitched very well the last few years in Detroit, he’s been reborn in southern California, posting his best peripherals since 2010. He’s under contract for one more year at a reasonable price, so it’ll be interesting to see if the Padres dangle him this offseason or head into 2015 with the 37-year-old as a potential ninth inning option.

– Glen Perkins‘ sub Jared Burton racked up save number three, his first since the Twins’ lefty was shut down for the season. Burton should hold value as a speculative saves play over the last few days of the season but his peripherals have trended south with regression in his strikeout rates and velocity. His BB% has climbed each of the last three years, which clouds his potential redraft value for 2015. Even with Perkins somewhat of a question mark coming off of an arm injury (however minor Minnesota says it is), Burton’s 4.19 SIERA may be a high enough mark to keep him out of the handcuff discussion next season.

– Aaron Sanchez polished off a Mark Buehrle gem for the Jays this evening. The “not judge on Food Network’s Chopped” Sanchez has looked sharp in limited time this season, posting a 1.15 ERA and 2.83 xFIP. Even with the 97 mph fastball, he’s not putting up nice peripherals with gaudy strikeout numbers (only 22% K%, 6% SwStr%). Rather, he’s pitching heavy, inducing grounders on over 65% of the balls put in play against him. He’s likely gone in most keeper/dynasty formats, but is a nice add if he’s somehow available. It’s questionable whether his stuff will every translate to big whiff numbers (minor league K% sat between 22% and 25%), but if the Jays let Casey Janssen walk this year, it’s not inconceivable they’ll consider Sanchez in a late-inning role in 2015.

– Quick hits: Jonathan Papelbon returned after “Crotchgate.” He did give up a double but otherwise escaped unscathed. Ken Giles run was all too brief. Darren O’Day picked up a four-out save. Great news for his owners, but Zach Britton still has this pen on lockdown headed to the postseason. Hector Rondon gave up a couple of hits but managed to escape with his 27th save of the season. 27 saves isn’t bad for someone who could have been had freely at multiple points during the season’s first couple of months.

Closer Grid:

[Green light, yellow light, red light: the colors represent the volatility of the bullpen order.]

• As a brilliant reader pointed out, Zach Putnam has received the last two save opportunities for the White Sox so he has moved ahead of Jake Petricka on the grid below. So naturally in tonight’s game Petricka recorded the four out save. At this point it could be anyone’s game but with Petricka throwing tonight, Putnam could get the next opportunity, although Petricka only threw 20 pitches. If both are on the wire and you need saves over the season’s final week, I would first make sure other closers aren’t around but if that’s not an option, certainly go for Putnam over Petricka. Skill wise, they are similar with Putnam’s 3.65 xFIP narrowly beating out Petricka’s 3.69 number but the value is mostly tied to who’s pitching the ninth.

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• As Dan mentioned last night, Edward Mujica is sticking at closer for the Red Sox for the remainder of the season, and recorded his eighth save of the year today. Mujica won’t rack up the strikeouts for the Red Sox or your fantasy team but for the season’s final weeks, he’ll be the guy in the ninth in Boston and could net your team a few more saves.

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The closer grid is updated below, but first up is your current rankings for 5×5 (W,SO,ERA,WHIP,SV), 6×6 (+HLD) and rate-stat (K/9, BB/9, HR/9, H/9, ERA) leagues using z-scores (rate stats adjusted by IP) for each category. It’s currently sorted by the standard 5×5 format. Scroll to the right for all of the individual z-scores in gray. I highlighted the relievers in green:

Here is yesterday morning’s review of Friday’s games including a grundle-grab reference, Edward Mujica probably sticking at closer, Drew Storen definitely sticking at closer, a White Sox closer swap rewarded with shakiness, and an update on Glen Glen Glen!

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Phillies at Athletics: Ken Giles is the closer! This has already happened, but It’s my first BP Report since the Jonathan Papelbon grundle-grab, and I wanted to type it. I also wanted to type grundle-grab. Giles hasn’t had a save opportunity yet and his only 9th since was on 9/17. Sean Doolittle converted his 22nd save with 100% fastballs. Much of his success comes from throwing high, hard and historic which he did here:

I get two BP reports in a row so today i’ll focus a bit more on the game decisions and updates. Tomorrow I’ll get back to my normal per-pitch effect and component-comparison deal. I’ll also furnish an updated rankings list for your different league formats. I’m thinking the following:

5×5 (ERA,WHIP,W,K,SV)

6×6 (ERA,WHIP,W,K,SV + HOLDS)

5×5 Rate Stats Leagues (K/9, BB/9, HR/9, H/9, RA/9).

Any other formats? Shoot me a note in the comments section and maybe i’ll include it in tomorrow’s different rankings.

Indians at Twins: Glen Perkins has finally been shut down and Jared Burton will continue to consume closing responsibilities. While a MRI revealed no damage to his UCL (great news), he’ll be shutdown with a forearm strain and nerve irritation in his elbow. Strengthening and two months should do the trick. Burton got the win yesterday in 2/3 IP while Cody Allen blew his fourth save of the season through a Suzuki Double, Arcia Single and a botched double play ball.

Red Sox at Orioles: Edward Mujica got his 7th save of the season through three balls in play which is what we’ll continue to see from Mujica about 78% of the time (80% general contact-rate). Koji Uehara last pitched on 9/16 striking out the side. I just don’t see much motivation for them to make the swap at this point, but i’ll still swap him and Tazawa in the grid below. Zach Britton kept the game scoreless in the 9th and Darren O’Day continued his all or nothing month with a mistake and loss to David Ortiz. This says it all:

That red quadrilateral dead center? Yup, Ortiz capitalized.

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A relatively slow night out of the bullpens as the MLB season is coming close to an end. Here are a few things that came to mind on Thursday:

Addison Reed served up a ninth-inning walk-off tater to Wilin Rosario to blow his sixth save of the season. That’s now seven earned runs that Reed has surrendered in his last five trips to the hill. Not good. The Diamondbacks’ closer is now 1-7 on the year with 31 saves in 37 chances with a 4.40 ERA (4.15 FIP) and owned a 21.1% K% entering Thursday. The right-hander’s 13.3% HR/FB% prior to tonight’s longball represents a career high and appears to be one of the primary culprits for the spike in ERA. And with roughly half of his home games at Chase Field and a good chunk at Coors, maybe this is more of the Addison Reed we should expect going forward with respect to ratios — not the 2013 version.
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-Welp. After just talking about some of Glen Perkins‘ issues last night, word came out this morning that the lefty is dealing with a myriad of issues involving his neck, shoulder, biceps, and elbow. What a laundry list. To make a long story short, the Twins’ closer is out until at least the weekend, and given the team’s situations, seems like a prime candidate to be shut down for the rest of the season.

While Ron Gardenhire wouldn’t tip his hand when asked by reporters who his new closer might be, Read the rest of this entry »

-Not a great night for closers in Detroit. First, Glen Perkins coughed up a 2-0 lead by serving up a three-run tater to J.D. Martinez. Not to be outdone, of course, Detroit’s maligned closer Joe Nathan permitted a couple runs of his own (two hits and a walk) in giving the game right back to the Twinkies.

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-After a 1-1 duel for eight innings, Darren O’Day and David Robertson conspired to take those two runs and double them (and then some!) in the ninth. The sidearming O’Day allowed a towering home run to Brian McCann to originally tilt the balance of power towards New York. The issue was a blip in the radar for O’Day, who owns a fairly sizable split between his 3.29 xFIP and 2.65 SIERA. The difference is whether or not you believe his BABIP suppression is real. xFIP thinks massive regression is due from his .224 mark, but SIERA sees his GB% and infield popup/hit rates and says “there’s some weak contact there.” I tend to think the truth is somewhere in between, making him still a useful cog in holds leagues or just for rate purposes in standard roto.

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