If nothing else, Joakim Soria’s 2011 season has proven the true volatility of the closer position. After some early struggles; which led to five blown saves and a brief demotion, Soria appears to have returned to form. While it’s difficult to evaluate his performance due to his tiny innings sample, there appears to be some evidence that suggests Soria may have truly returned to his former level of dominance. Still, if Soria slips up again, Aaron Crow is still waiting in the wings to reclaim the closer job. Does Soria have what it takes to permanently keep the job this time?
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After picking six for over 20 days straight, I’ve won one day. One stinking Bobby Valentine. Perhaps I’m not the best person to turn to for strategy in this particular game. I’ll offer it up anyway.

Mimicking my general fantasy strategy, I’ve been pushing money away from pitching. There are so many good matchups every day, why not find a good, cheap pitcher against a terrible offense? Last night, I chose a $17.75 Shaun Marcum (at home against New York), but that’s about the most expensive I’ll go for a starter. I was severely tempted by a $10.75 Daniel Hudson in Pittsburgh, and even Jonathan Sanchez at home against the Nationals made sense at $6.25 (or his opponent, the $3.50 Jordan Zimmermann). Don’t spend on starting.

If you are not going to spend on starting, there’s really no reason to spend on relieving. If a starter is no guarantee to perform on any given night, at least he’s guaranteed to show up and, you know, play. The ottoneu Dark Lord Niv Shah was kind enough to give me the points per position in the Pick Six game so far. Clearly, relievers are the red-headed step-children of the game.

After all that blabbing about not paying for pitching, it might be surprising to see that starting pitchers have the best number in this table. But the point wasn’t that pitchers are not worth spending money on, the point was that there were plenty of bargains. Niv is nothing if not eminently bug-able – he graciously gave me the points per dollar spent for each position.

Ah-hah. So, even just by groping my way through the dark with intuition instead of the numbers in front of me, it looks like I stumbled onto a viable strategy. Spend where you get the most return for your dollar: non-catcher offense.

Oh, and while you are at it, join a group! Now Pick Six has groups so that you attract like-minded players easily. Oh, and with groups you might be able to put a little friendly gummy-bear wager on the thing. If you like gummy bears or whatever. I’m in #PraiseBeltran and I started RotoGraphRegulars. Pimp your group here if you want others to join in!

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 »