With Sergio Santos being traded to the Toronto Blue Jays for Nestor Molina on Tuesday afternoon, it seems to signal the raising of a white flag of sorts on the South side. Santos had a pretty spectacular year, serving primarily as the team closer, posting a 2.87 FIP with a staggering 13.07 K/9, saving 30 games over 63.1 innings pitched. Santos is presumably the closer in Toronto, where he will have great fantasy value, but who will be handling ninth inning duties for the White Sox is very much up in the air — although they have plenty of options.

First in line would presumably be Matt Thornton, who entered 2011 splitting duties with Chris Sale, and then kinda-sorta handed the full time closer role, and then subsequently blew up and was relegated back to set-up duties. And while he wasn’t quite as dominant has he was in the previous two seasons, he was still pretty nasty — putting up a 2.62 FIP and a 9.50 K/9 rate. His strikeouts were down from 12.02 K/9 in 2010, but even at 9.50, it was right in line with his career average. He was stung by some bad luck with a strand rate of just 61.2% whereas his career rate sits at 74.7%, not to mention a BABIP of .326 where his career rate is .295. After a horrific first month of the season (5.91 FIP), Thornton was mostly back to his old self, throwing 51 innings, giving up 45 hits, striking out 53, allowing just one home run, posting an ERA of 2.45 and holding opponents to a .232/.286/.289 triple-slash. But if there’s truly a fire sale going on, it’s probable that they’ll be taking offers for Thornton too.

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Much to our very own Brandon Warne’s chagrin, Matt Capps has returned to the Minnesota Twins, ostensibly to take over the role that he lost to Joe Nathan mid-season, serving as their resident fireman. The Twins have signed Capps to a one-year, $4.5 million dollar deal with a 2013 option for $6 million dollars. Fantasy managers, not to mention the Minnesota faithful, would like to know who plans to show up in 2012, the Matt Jeckyl or Matt Hyde version of Matt Capps.

In the last four seasons, serving as closer for the Pittsburgh Pirates, Washington Nationals, and the Minnesota Twins, he’s been dominant, and then miserable, twice over. His four year FIP rates as a world class amusement park ride:

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As we dive deeper into the rankings, we start to come across some youngster lacking track records and a veteran with some injury concerns. Saves are saves though; it’s amazing what we’ll put up with to make sure we get as many of them as possible.

I’ve included Zach Sanders’ end of season player rankings for reference.

Tier One (link)
Craig Kimbrel
John Axford
Jonathan Papelbon
Mariano Rivera

Tier Two (link)
Ryan Madson
Brian Wilson
J.J. Putz
Jose Valverde
Heath Bell

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There aren’t many closers worth keeping in traditional fantasy leagues, where keeper spots may be limited and are saved for the best of the best. Once you move beyond the game’s elite closers, you start to run into guys that carry greater risk, perhaps more risk than you’d be willing to assume with a keeper spot. Those are the guys you’ll find in Tier Two of our keeper rankings, including the two pitchers who started last year as the top fantasy closers in baseball.

I’ve included Zach Sanders’ end of season value rankings for reference, but they’re weren’t the only criteria used to put together the rankings/tiers.

Tier One (link)
Craig Kimbrel
John Axford
Jonathan Papelbon
Mariano Rivera

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As we sit and wait for all the big-named free agents to find themselves new homes, it’s time to start thinking about strategy for next year.  There are numerous of ways to go about drafting your team and you’re going to hear plenty of do’s and don’ts from a variety of people.  So allow me to chime in here first and tell you why punting saves should not be in your plans when developing a proper draft strategy.  Some people see no harm in it and tell you to just bulk up elsewhere.  I disagree.  It’s an automatic concession of points to your competition and immediately puts you at a disadvantage.

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In comedy, they say, timing is everything. It turns out that the same thing is true in sports journalism.

Yesterday, I suggested that the Twins would likely turn to Glen Perkins to fill the void left by the recently departed Joe Nathan. While I still think Perkins is one of the better options out there that won’t cost a fortune, the Twins feel that he’s better served remaining in his current role rather than taking over the closing job. In fact, citing a lack of depth in the current bullpen, General Manager Terry Ryan indicated that the team would fill the vacancy with someone from outside the organization. Read the rest of this entry »

The Joe Nathan era in Minnesota is officially over, leaving the team down to just one piece from the trade that sent A.J. Pierzynski to San Francisco for Nathan, Boof Bonser, and the eternally enigmatic Francisco Liriano. The deal looked like a huge win for the Twins in 2006 and 2010 — when Liriano looked fantastic — and like much less of a bargain in the years when Nathan was the sole producer of positive value.

For the first time since Nathan’s arrival in 2004, the Twins don’t have a long-term option at closer already on the team. They got a taste of what life post-Nathan was like in 2010 when Jon Rauch (21/25 in save opportunities) and Matt Capps (16/18 in save opportunities) split time, but neither Rauch nor Capps is currently with the team.

In theory, the team could go with closer by committee, but I find that to be extremely unlikely. Knowing that Nathan would be back for the 2011 season, they still went out and traded Wilson Ramos for Capps. Times may have been different then, but it does show something of a fundamental desire to have consistency at the end of games, something that closer-by-committee doesn’t really offer. To that end, here are a few names to keep in mind as potential options for the Twins’ next closer. Read the rest of this entry »

In 2011, Jonathan Papelbon was entering the last year of his contract with the Boston Red Sox without the two sides managing to work out an extension to keep him as closer for the future. It wasn’t cemented that Papelbon was gone, but there was a good deal of speculation that Daniel Bard was the heir apparent to the fireman’s role as he was coming off a dominant 2010 campaign.

When Papelbon recently signed with the Philadelphia Phillies, many assumed that the Boston brass would summarily anoint Bard as closer and move on to more pressing issues in the starting rotation and trying to find a right fielder, but there was no such announcement. In fact, when Daniel Bard’s name was brought up, it was mentioned that while he may be a candidate for the closer role, he might also stay in his familiar set-up job, or they just might try him out as a starter.

The starting role possibility was news to me, and and in looking at his minor league starts, it turns out there’s a pretty good reason why. Daniel Bard was a terrible minor league starting pitcher.

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My colleagues here have been ranking the top keepers by position for the last month or so, and now it’s time to get caught up on the guys pitching at the end of the game, the closers. There aren’t many relievers out there worth a keeper spot, especially in leagues that limit you to four or five keepers, but these four guys are the very best of the best. They offer top-of-the-line production and job security, but they also play on what are expected to be strong teams. Theoretically, they’re in line for more save chances.

I’ve included Zach Sanders’ end of season value rankings for reference, but they were not the sole criteria used to create the keeper rankings or delineate the tiers.

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Before I begin, please allow me to congratulate both Craig Kimbrel and Jeremy Hellickson for winning their respective league’s 2011 Rookie of the Year awards.  It was the first time since 1981 when Dave Righetti (NYY- AL) and Fernando Valenzuela (LAD- NL) won that each league’s award went to a pitcher in the same season.  Both seemed deserving of such esteemed honors, although one brings on a greater debate than the other.  Kimbrel, with a record 46 saves by a rookie, finished with a 2.10 ERA, a 1.04 WHIP, and an eye-popping 127 strikeouts in 77 innings of work.  Hellickson, starter of 29 games and winner of 13, finished the season with a 2.95 ERA, a 1.15 WHIP and notched 117 Ks in a rookie-leading 189 innings.  I could talk about peripherals and who was more deserving and what not, but that’s neither here nor there right now.  What is important is how winning this award affects the value of each player in 2012 fantasy baseball drafts.   All too often, players are drafted based on name and hype and winning the Rookie of the Year award certainly helps build both.  So before you go breaking the bank to acquire this year’s crop, allow me to point out that you should probably keep your expectations low.

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