Archive for Middle Relievers

In an attempt to improve what I find most challenging when constructing my fantasy roster, I found a league this season that could help me address those shortcomings, with the hope that it would also inform my approach in future seasons across all formats. This was joining a league with scoring that heavily favored relievers, with increased points for saves and holds, and minus points for blown saves.

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The Pre-Trade Deadline episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Greg Jewett

Strategy Section

• Pre-Trade Deadline – Closers
  • Trading to and for perspective closers prior to the trade deadline
  • Trading for closers vs. acquiring saves on the waiver wire
  • What to look for when speculating for potential closer candidates?
  • How much should you spend on the waiver wire for closer speculations?
  • Relievers who may gain save opportunities
  • Closers who may lose their job
• Closer situations
  • Padres
  • Mets
  • Giants
  • Angels
  • Tigers
  • Dodgers

Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week

Waiver Wire

Pitcher Preview

Injury Update

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On Sunday, I read the following comment on Rotoworld about Chase Burns‘ start:

His fastball was located well, but, as has been true in his first two starts, he doesn’t get tons of whiffs on the pitch. He had eight whiffs on 55 total fastballs in this one, with a whopping 16 foul balls. His fastball has below average extension and simply isn’t as elite of a pitch against big league hitters who can handle high velocity.

Sure enough, his four-seamer has generated just a 7.6% SwStk% despite the pitch averaging a scintillating 98.2 MPH. So it got me thinking about perceived velocity, which extension affects. If a pitcher is throwing 95 MPH, but the batter perceives the pitch’s velocity to actually be 97 MPH, or perhaps 93 MPH, that should matter, right? I would therefore think the gap between perceived and actual velocity would influence the pitch’s whiff rate and the pitcher’s strikeout rate. So I decided to dive in and find out if that theory is true.

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The Relief Pitcher episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Greg Jewett

Strategy Section

• Closer Landscape
• Closer Strategy
  • Should you invest in an elite closer?
  • Is it viable to draft two top-10 closers?
• Would you rather?
• Breakout relievers

Closer Situations

• Free Agents
• American League
• National League

Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week

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Yesterday’s dominating non-closing reliever post was pretty popular, with many of you offering additional names. So, I figured I would double up on the theme by posting another group of relievers. This time, I sorted by CSW% to include those who might not be as adept at inducing swinging strikes, but have made up for it by generating a high rate of called strikes. I filtered out anyone that made yesterday’s list or is currently serving as closer.

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The Relief Pitcher episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Doug Dennis

Strategy Section

• The value of rostering a closer handcuff
• The value of middle relievers who won’t close games
• Key Middle Relievers
  • Reed Garrett
  • Bryan Abreu
  • Yennier Cano
• Timing of when to pick up closer handcuffs off of the wire
• Looking at overall skills vs. recent performance
• How much FAAB to spend on new in-season closers?
• How to deal with closers potentially being traded mid-season?
• When to drop a struggling or demoted closer?
• Decisions are context dependent
• Closers on bad teams

The Doug Dennis Strategy

• Tout Wars expert league strategy

Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week

Bullpen Situations

• Phillies
• Orioles
• Rays
• Twins
• Dodgers
• Nationals

Waiver Wire

Pitcher Preview

Injury Update

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If you play in a shallow mixed league that only cares about saves and ignores holds, you rarely, if ever, have even considered picking up a non-closing reliever. However, in deep mixed, and especially mono leagues, or those that count holds in some form (as a separate category or combined with saves), non-closing relievers can accrue fantasy value. So it’s worth perusing your free agent pool and the FanGraphs leaderboards to find the next hidden gem. Ya never know, one of these names could end up finding themselves in the closer role if the incumbent hits a rough patch or the IL.

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A vulture, according to a quick Google search is:

a large bird of prey with the head and neck more or less bare of feathers, feeding chiefly on carrion (the decaying flesh of dead animals) and reputed to gather with others in anticipation of the death of a sick or injured animal or person.

Mike Baumann, of the Baltimore Orioles, not FanGraphs.com, has been given the nickname, “The Vulture” due to his 2023 fondness for swooping in and picking up the win once the starter leaves the game. It’s a pretty badass nickname and though by literal definition may not be flattering, it’s still pretty cool. I think Bauman and the rest of the O’s bullpen leaning into it would be fun. Just imagine the reliever taking a huge bite out of a cherry snowcone right before running out of the pen. He begins his warm-up pitches from the mound, red dripping down his chin. The vulture has entered the game.

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I had so much fun uncovering some hidden reliever gems yesterday that I decided to go another round and discuss six more names.

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On a personal level, the All-Star break can be declared a success as I’ve made major improvements to my pitch result evaluator, pERA. I was supposed to do dive into it last season, but I spent most of the time dealing with the league’s new rules so this update got pushed off until now. I planned on adding Ball Percentage (Ball%), Called Strikes (CStr%), and StatCast batted ball information. I felt each add would provide a clearer picture of the pitcher’s pitches. I eventually found out I was double counting the same information with Ball% and CStr% and needed to remove one. Read the rest of this entry »