It’s time to update our closer rankings as the calendar flips to June. Here are the preseason and May rankings for reference, and here’s the saves leaderboard as well. Obviously those saves are the most important thing here, but the best closers give you more than that, boosting your strikeout total while pulling your ERA and WHIP down. A number of high-end ninth inning guys lose their jobs this month or are now dangerously close to losing it, so there’s been some movement up top.

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Relievers are a notoriously fickle bunch. But few closers have beaten opposing batters into submission more frequently than Joakim Soria since he became Kansas City’s stopper in 2007. Soria ranked fourth in the majors among relievers in Wins Above Replacement from ’07 to 2010, trailing only Mariano Rivera, Jonathan Papelbon and Jonathan Broxton. The only real concern with The Mexicutioner heading into the 2011 season was health, as shoulder problems put him on the DL in 2007 and 2009. But Soria appeared in a career-high 66 games last year and looked poised to dominate once again.

Instead, the 26-year-old has gotten torched. Soria blew his third consecutive save chance yesterday versus the Angels, as Torii Hunter hammered a 90 MPH pitch over the left field fence at Kauffman Stadium to put L.A. on top. In 22 innings pitched this season, the right-hander has -0.3 WAR. And for the time being, Soria has been booted from the closer role in favor of rookie Aaron Crow. What’s going on with Soria?

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To close out our series of looks at the values of players in ottoneu Pick Six, we look today at pitchers.  As before, the numbers below are based on weighted averages of THT’s Oliver and BPro’s PECOTA (more weight to Oliver b/c it includes this season’s data).  The numbers are FP (FanGraphs Points per IP), though keep in mind that for starters this number is divided by four to keep starters from being the only thing that matters in pick six.

Starting Pitchers

Elite Five (they cost a fortune, but they’re worth it)

Tim Lincecum, 5.33 FP/IP, $48
Josh Johnson, 5.21 FP/IP, $38
Felix Hernandez, 5.04 FP/IP, $49
Cliff Lee, 5.04 FP/IP, $43
Roy Halladay, 5.01 FP/IP, $52

Johnson’s injury risk has kept his value down in traditional ottoneu, but when he’s healthy (currently has shoulder ouchie), he’s the best value of this group.  But you can’t go wrong here: more than any other pitchers in baseball, these guys should give you lots of productive innings per start.

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Jonathan Broxton was a question mark coming into the season following his second half struggles in 2010, but the Dodgers had backup options in place in case he was unable to regain his past effectiveness. Hong-Chih Kuo had been one of the best relievers in all of baseball over the last few seasons, and the Dodgers also had the flamethrowing Kenley Jansen at their disposal. Vicente Padilla would also be in the mix once he recovered from offseason elbow surgery. Less than two months into the season, it’s all fallen apart in Chavez Ravine.

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Allow me to make an assumption. If you’re reading the roto-blog at FanGraphs you’re likely smarter than your league mates. We tend to attract a different kind of cat over here. You’re more rational. You have a deeper understanding of what makes baseball tick, and you use that information to outwit your lesser prepared league mates. That being said, you’re all aware of how fickle saves can be. If a closer has a few rough outings in a row, or a less than stellar ERA, people tend to freak out. Again, not you guys, those other people. Paying for saves on draft day tends to be a fruitless endeavor, but there’s no reason you can’t hoodwink an owner in May whose panicking over small sample sizes.

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One group of players that are usually under utilized are relievers that have SP qualification. For leagues that have daily transactions, these pitchers can fit in nicely for real starting pitchers on their off days. They are must haves in leagues that count holds. Also, they may vulture a save or win here and there and help pad your rate stats.

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Our preseason reliever rankings were just that, reliever rankings. I’m going to break things up during the season, looking at closers and non-closers separately. There will be some overlap of course, but middle relievers don’t have much value in most leagues, so these rankings are based on the almighty save. As you’d expect, there’s already been a ton of changes since the season began. Guys have lost their jobs, others have gotten hurt, others have come out of (seemingly) nowhere. That’s just the name of the closer’s game. Let’s start off with three familiar names…

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Like vultures picking every last piece of meat off a carcass in the hot desert sun, it’s time for us to take another look at the waiver wire and see what remaining pieces of fantasy value lie in the pool of unwanted free agents… Read the rest of this entry »

When playing typical fantasy baseball, the main thing that fantasy managers typically worry about regarding relievers is one thing: jobs.  If a reliever is a closer, he has value.  If not, they generally are considered to have very little value except in very deep leagues.

In FanGraphs Points leagues, however, a reliever’s job means a bit less, because saves (worth 5 points apiece) are worth only marginally more than a hold (4 points).  With that in mind, I think it’s interesting to take a look at reliever rankings without worrying about jobs.  In a sense, what we’re talking about are “true talent” projections for relievers, but still including things like park factors that do matter for fantasy comparisons.  If you have an estimate of a pitcher’s true talent, you may be able to find that cheap bargain pitcher who will outperform bad relievers with jobs.  And in all likelihood, the best pitchers would be expected to be among the first to take on the closer role once it becomes available.

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With some help from his defense, Jonathan Broxton blew his first save of the season yesterday, allowing two (unearned) runs to the Marlins for a walk-off loss. Ned Colletti said today that the big right-hander is out as the team’s primary closer, at least temporarily. Take it away, Molly Knight:

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