• Hope you stashed Trevor Rosenthal (for a few days, at least). The flamethrowing righty picked up his third save in as many days on Wednesday, striking out a pair against the Nationals. You don’t need me to tell you how fantastic Rosenthal has pitched this year. His 2.41 xFIP puts him seventh amongst big league relievers and that’s right where he slots in WAR-wise as well.

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Earlier in the week Rafael Soriano eclipsed the 40-save mark for the third time in his career with his third different team. In 2010 Soriano notched 45 saves with the Rays, in 2012 he successfully closed out 42 games for the Yankees and so far this season the 33-year-old has 42 saves under his belt. Pretty impressive if you ask me. Tonight’s save was the 42nd for Soriano in 48 opportunities on the year. It wasn’t a clean effort by any stretch — Soriano surrendered two walks — but he overcame the free passes with a ground out then fanned young Christian Yelich to end the game. To go with his 42 saves, Soriano owns a 3.20 ERA and a 1.24 WHIP.
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• The Rangers are certainly not playing their best baseball, and Joe Nathan didn’t help tonight. Texas’ closer was tagged with a “BS” in the box score after giving up a walk, a stolen base, and a single. Nathan has been steadily outperforming his peripherals all year, posting a mid-1.00’s ERA even with an xFIP north of 3.00. While that’s not a major concern, the fact that his BB% has spiked to 13.7% after the all-star break (and a walk began his undoing tonight) is somewhat concerning. His velocity has trended up later in the season, although he remains below his 2012 mark. The control bears watching (given some of Jeff Zimmerman’s work which implies loss of command is a potential sign of injury) and the fact that Nathan will be entering his age 39 season next year makes him somewhat of an low-upside keeper stash. That said, ride him for the next 10 days.

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• Huston Street is going to be away from the Padres for the next couple of days to attend his grandmother’s funeral. Padres beat reporter Corey Brock seems to think that Luke Gregerson has the inside track on a couple of scab saves while San Diego’s incumbent closer is unavailable. While a trendy pick among handcuff setup men, Gregerson only has three saves to his name on the year, owing to Street’s general health. As usual, the right-handed setup man has posted a shiny ERA and an above-average xFIP. With a career .273 BABIP, you could make an argument that he may have some batted ball suppression skills (thereby implying his xFIP should be lower than it is), but he gives up an awful lot of line drives for that to be true. All that aside, Gregerson makes for an excellent target if you want to stream for saves the next couple of days. Pick him up now if those are what you seek.

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• A few weeks ago, it certainly looked like the closer role was Jason Grilli’s upon his return. Well, things apparently have changed. Mark Melancon (he of 2.08 xFIP) tossed a scoreless ninth Saturday for save number 15 in 2013. Grilli has struggled since returning from a forearm strain, allowing earned runs in three of his four post-DL appearances. His 5/2 K/BB in three innings isn’t atrocious, but nonetheless, the hits have been falling. Grilli’s velocity has been down 1-2 mph Read the rest of this entry »

Ernesto Frieri locked down his 33rd save of the year as the Angels clipped the Blue Jays 4-3 tonight in Toronto. He yielded a hit and a free pass, but fanned two Jays in a 35-pitch effort to seal the deal. Frieri is now 33-of-37 in save chances on the year with a 3.79 ERA (3.44 FIP) and a 1.26 WHIP. Considering the fact it took the right-hander 35 tosses to finish off the Blue Birds — just one night after throwing 17 pitches — fantasy baseballers may want to t take a chance on Dane de la Rosa as a streaming reliever on Friday in case Frieri needs the rest. De la Rosa is 2-of-5 in save chances this year with 16 holds and sports a whiff rate just barely north of 20%. But at this point in the year, a save is a save is a save.
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One of the closers that clearly exceeded expectations this season is Greg Holland. The Royals closer tallied his 42nd save of the season tonight while lowering his ERA to 1.35 (1.30 FIP). He needed just 15 pitchers to fan each of the three Indians he faced to increase his career-high whiff rate to 40.9%. Holland’s ability to hit the first-strike and keep barrels off the ball both in and out of the zone seem to be some of the factors leading to his improvement this year. Fantasy baseballers likely didn’t invest a whole lot into Holland this season — he was the 14th relief pitcher selected at an average draft position of ~145, according to FantasyPros — but that will surely change for next season. Holland is primed to start the 2014 year as a top ten reliever.
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(Pretty) good day for closers today, so the news is pretty light. Also good since I’m flying cross-country.

• I say pretty good, because Mariano Rivera blew his seventh save of the season, allowing a solo shot to Will Middlebrooks in the top of the ninth. OK, caveats. Mo was asked to pitch two innings with a decimated Yankee bullpen and the Bronx Bombers on the verge of a four-game sweep at home. The home run was an opposite field flare that only the short porch at Yankee Stadium loves. Rivera looked sharp, whiffing three in his two innings. Oh, and fantasy owners lost a save but gained a win when Ichiro Suzuki raced home following Brandon Workman’s wild pitch in the bottom of the ninth.

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-Earlier today I threw together a list of arms who have both starting and relief pitcher eligibility that you can see here. After a comment in the article and a few mentions on Twitter, I decided I should have included the Orioles’ Kevin Gausman and the Tigers’ Drew Smyly. So here is a quick addendum to said article:

Kevin Gausman | Orioles | 2%
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• We’ve said it in this space before but there are just some teams that are a waste of time when it comes to chasing saves. Apparently, the 2013 Astros are one of those teams. Bo Porter left Erik Bedard (who actually racked up the first save in baseball this season) in to try and finish off a win. No Chia-Jen Lo, no Josh Fields. Just Canadian pride. Unfortunately, Bedard gave up a leadoff tater to Ryan Doumit (12) so “BS” train, here we come. Of course, he still scabbed a win when Trevor Crowe singled in Jonathan Villar in the bottom of the ninth, so all was not lost for the 0.326% (*not a real number) of fantasy owners who started Bedard (or have left him accidentally in their lineup for months). Either way, the ‘Stros are probably looking at a handful (one handful) of saves the rest of the way and it’s highly unlikely they’ll come from the same source. I’m just not that into Russian roulette.

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