Instead of talking about established closers, or fresh faces being handed the closer role,  today we’re going to touch on two situations where the back end bullpen situation is unclear.

The Seattle Mariners are not going to win many games this year. That much is clear. What isn’t clear is who is going to be racking up the saves in the games they do happen to win now that incumbent closer David Aardsma will not be fully recovered from hip surgery to start the season. Spring training had just started so nothing is set in stone just yet, but the leader in the clubhouse looks to be Brandon League. According to USA Today that is who Manager Eric Wedge is learning toward. The soon to be 28-year-old League filled in for Aardsma at the end of last season to middling success. He has mostly been a set up man in his career, lacking the swing and miss stuff and most closers thrive on. While League’s possesses a fastball in the mid 90’s  his career K/9 is just 6.72. His main skill is inducing ground balls (career 62.2%) thanks in large part to an excellent circle-change up and cutter. David Aardsma will likely regain the closers role when he returns from the DL so that the Mariners can showcase him for a potential trade at the deadline. Until then – and likely after – League should garner a majority of the save opportunities, albeit without the strikeouts you’d prefer.

As opposed to the Mariners, the Tampa Bay Rays figure to win their share of games in the 2011 season. Unfortunately for them, and any fan of the team, they’ll have to do so without Rafael Soriano. Last season Soriano lead the American League with 45 saves, or just eight less than main contenders for Tampa Bay’s bullpen (Farnsworth, McGee, Cruz, Howell, Sonnanstine, Peralta, Russell) have combined in their careers. The youngest member of that group, and owner of zeros career saves, is left hander Jake McGee, and he’s the one who seems to be the favorite to land the role of closer. Rays’ Manager Joe Maddon certainly isn’t opposed to the closer-by-committee approach, but as much of a free thinker as he is, he would certainly prefer some structure. McGee wants to close for the Rays and has made his feelings known publicly. 2009 saves leader J.P. Howell will be sidelined for at least the first month, and Maddon prefers to use him as a rover anyway. That just leaves Kyle Farnsworth for McGee to beat out, which shouldn’t be hard considering his struggles against lefties and fly ball tendencies.

McGee can handle both left handed and right handed batters due to his excellent control of his fastball. Unlike League, he’s going to strike out hitters as evidenced by him having K/9 of  less than 10.00 only one time at any professional level. Of the 81 pitches McGee threw at the major league level last season 73 were fastballs, yet he garnered a 39% whiff rate on the pitch. The Rays have a soft schedule to open the season, which should provide McGee with plenty of opportunities to lock down the closers job for the rest of the season.

Well, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!  So I’ll stay in my niche here today and continue with more of the well traveled players.  By my count, we’ve got 27 players officially named the closer on their respective teams and of those guys, 3 of them have been imported from another club.  It looks like one of them is headed towards being a valuable fantasy commodity, but the other two might have a few bumps in the road. Read the rest of this entry »

As we continue to march along in our positional rankings, today we’re going to look at the guys coming out of the bullpen. These rankings are based on standard 5×5 scoring, so it’s geared towards closers (and saves). I’ll be keeping track of closers and middle relievers separately during the season for everyone in holds leagues. The man who threw the last pitch of the 2010 season leads us off…

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With Spring Training right around the corner, we’re starting to hear some rumblings about who will and who won’t be in line for save opportunities, at least in the early part of the season. Here’s the latest…

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Yesterday we took a look at five hitters heading into their contract years, and today we’ll cover the guys on the mound. Remember, this is completely subjective on my part. I’m not really sure there would be another way to go about doing this.

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Well, so much for that. Two of my recent posts were rendered obsolete or close to it in fell swoop yesterday. Time for some updates…

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A bunch of recent minor signings and news items probably don’t deserve full posts but might be relevant in deeper leagues. Let’s clear them out!

Jose Arredondo is healthy
Arredondo is finally good to go after a two-year battle with his elbow. You might wonder who this dude is, but remember his excellent 2008 with the Angels (3.10 FIP), when he was good enough to close for most teams. And then remember how bad Francisco Cordero is (4.53 xFIP last year), and you’ll know that Arredondo may just vulture a save or two this year. Sure, Aroldis Chapman is starting in the pen, too, and is in line in front of Arredondo, but he’s also got the ability to start. File this name away, at the very worst he may be useful in deeper leagues that use holds.

Shane Victorino was called out by Charlie Manuel
While Manuel may not be right to call out his player publicly, the fact that he mentioned that Victorino was swinging for the fences too often was interesting. Victorino had the worst BABIP of his career last year, and the highest fly-ball rate. These things are related, since the BABIP on fly balls is poor. Give Victorino a few home runs less and push his batting average a few ticks higher if he’s listening to his manager. Either way, he’s a decent bounce-back pick, and always shows a little power and a good amount of speed. Under-rated if you ask me.

Chien-Ming Wang to be ready for spring training
He hasn’t been useful for anything other than Wang jokes since about 2007 (or 2008 if you want to be generous), but Wang says his shoulder feels good and that he’d like to compete for a role in the rotation in spring training. Carlos Silva had some similar statistics and came to the weaker league and performed well – this Wang may not be done Chunging yet. Don’t forget about him in your deeper leagues, even if his lack of strikeouts makes his upside a little less palatable.

The Blue Jays were poised to lose their three best relief pitchers this offseason with Jason Frasor, Scott Downs, and Kevin Gregg all set to become free agents. Frasor accepted arbitration and will return in 2011, but Downs landed a three-year deal with the Angels and Gregg found two years in Baltimore. That left a considerable hole in Toronto’s bullpen, which they’ve addressed by signing Octavio Dotel and more recently Jon Rauch. Both have the “proven closer” tag (Dotel moreso than Rauch), so which one will see the save opportunities next season?

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As they are wont to do, the Yankees recently identified a hole on their ballclub and shored it up by rebuilding the engine when a simple tune-up would have sufficed. Rafael Soriano as the beneficiary of their latest splurge, becoming the game’s fifth highest paid relief pitcher on an average annual value basis, and he won’t even get the responsibility of working the ninth inning. That will still belong to the unparalleled Mariano Rivera, and it takes a bite out of Soriano’s fantasy stock. It goes without saying that he’s a must have in leagues that count holds, but what if yours doesn’t?

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The Rays have had the misfortune of seeing almost their entire bullpen leave via free agency this offseason, including All-World closer Rafael Soriano and dynamite setup man Joaquin Benoit. Andrew Friedman has had to rebuild his relief corps on the fly this winter, and it’s a process that’s still ongoing. He’s added a host of relievers in trades and a few through free agency, but at the moment there doesn’t appear to be a clear cut favorite for that almighty ninth inning role.

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