• Steve Cishek’s blow up last night was the last straw as Mike Redmond has removed him from the closer’s role.  Cishek’s seasonal struggles have been well noted in the Bullpen Reports this year. His velocity has been up and down this season and he’s just been too hittable all season long. Roller coasters are fun at an amusement park but when it involves your closer, a change needs to be made. There has been no news on who specifically will replace Cishek and the Marlins figure to mix and match/use a committee for now, until someone takes the job fully. In the mix should be Bryan Morris, Mike Dunn (L),  A.J. Ramos and potentially Rafael Soriano as he and the Marlins are “very much engaged” in talks. As Darren speculated in last night’s BR, based on their seasons thus far you would expect A.J. Ramos to receive the first chance but until we see what he does we won’t really know. It’s possible that Redmond might leave Ramos in the familiar eighth inning and play the matchups with Morris and Dunn. Still, the safe speculation is Ramos, Dunn and Morris, and in that order.

Rafael Soriano wasn’t necessarily bad last year as he had a 3.19/3.08/3.92 ERA/FIP/xFIP line but he also wasn’t impressive enough to find a contract this season, yet. He did save 32 games though, and if the Marlins sign him they could prefer Soriano’s closing experience while keeping the rest of the bullpen in their familiar roles. By the time this is published, the Marlins won’t have a save opportunity to speak about but we’ll be sure to keep you up to date on their bullpen situation along with any additional Soriano rumors. I recognize Cishek isn’t injured or in the minors, but for now I’m placing him in the last column on the closer grid.

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Many fantasy baseball championships are won on draft day. But some fake baseballers are able bring home the bacon with shrewd waiver wire moves and smoothly navigating their league’s settings to identify certain loopholes they can use to their advantage.

In some league variations, owners are have a fixed number of starting and relief roster spots to fill each-and-every day, so identifying lesser-owned hurlers with dual eligibility could be more valuable than most imagine. With that said, here is a short list of arms that said owners could slot into either their starting or relief roster spots in an attempt to gain an advantage in needed categories.

All ownership percentages reflect Yahoo! leagues.

Zach McAllister | Indians | 1% Y!
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With Jake McGee currently on a rehab assignment and Sean Doolittle reportedly set to begin one soon, Brad Boxberger and Tyler Clippard may not be seeing much of the ninth inning soon. Ignoring the whims of managers and whether McGee and Doolittle will resume their role as closer, should they? Read the rest of this entry »

I guess I missed that internet meme turned actual thing with “may the fourth be with you” last night so tonight I hope everyone enjoyed themselves on Cinco de Mayo. My roommate made Guacamole, so if that counts as celebrating then I did. Anywho, back to the bullpens…

• After allowing a lead-off solo shot to Chris Davis to start the ninth inning, Jeurys Familia retired the next three batters for his league leading 11th save of the year. After tonight’s outing Familia is supporting a 1.88/3.20/2.14 ERA/FIP/xFIP line with a 58.6% GB% and 17 strikeouts against just three walks in 14.1 innings pitched. It’s impossible for Familia to hold a .107 BABIP all season long but Familia is showing he is more than just the fill-in closer for the Mets. I could see Familia out performing some of the ROS projections a tad, but expecting an ERA far below 3.00 isn’t necessarily reasonable. Still, he should continue to see save opps for the Metropolitans while striking out over a batter an inning without anyone breathing down his neck.

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• The Yankees bullpen, which has been nearly perfect this season, blew the one-run lead in the eighth inning tonight with Chris Martin and Dellin Betances allowing three runs between them. Betances, who allowed an unearned run and still maintains a sparkling 0.00 ERA, received his first blown save of the season. Martin received the loss after allowing two hits to start the inning. Although Martin’s ERA ballooned to 3.86 after tonight’s outing, he still supports a 1.67 FIP and 2.36 FIP with 13 strikeouts against two walks in 11.2 innings pitched. Not bad for the third best guy in the pen. The ROS projections for Martin aren’t too promising given his unsuccessful recent history but he’s also hasn’t been particularly lucky this season with a 72.7 LOB% and.258 BABIP. Martin hasn’t allowed a home run yet, and he likely won’t go all year without giving one up but his GB% is 54.8%, so it’s not as if fly balls keep on just missing. He’s far away from saves with Andrew Miller and Betances crushing everyone right now but Martin should be a hold machine with an above average strikeout rate, valuable in most, if not all, deep leagues.

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Welcome back to “Scheming for Relief.” Again this week we’re looking to for a handful of players that you could slot into your relief pitcher slots in holds or solds (saves + holds) leagues, but this week we’re going to dig a little deeper. Knowing that most standard leagues may not value holds or solds (holds + saves), I looked for players owned in one percent or less in both the Yahoo! and ESPN games.

To qualify for the chart relievers needed at least five appearances, at least one hold, a K%-BB% greater or equal to 10%, an ERA under 4.00 and a WHIP under 1.50.

As always, I’ll list ownership in both Yahoo! and ESPN, simply because those are the outlets I frequent the most.

Here’s three of the names that search uncovered that we have yet to speak about and could be available in your leagues:

Evan Scribner | Athletics | 1% Y!, .1% E
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• Huston Street saved his ninth game of the year with a large thanks to Mike Trout for doing this. Street allowed four base runners and was somehow able to only allow one earned run, even including Trout’s game saving catch. Street owners should be thankful for Trout, as this could have been a disaster of an outing. Today’s earned run was the first allowed on street this year and he will enter his next appearance with an impressive 1.00/1.95/3.59 ERA/FIP/xFIP line. This is the Bullpen Report, but Mike Trout is so good he becomes the lead.

• Sean Doolittle continued his rehab, throwing a 25-pitch bullpen today.  Assuming no set backs, Doolittle should have a few more bullpens before starting the rehab appearances in the low minors. The A’s have only handed Tyler Clippard two save opportunities thus far, so Clippard owners expecting a few saves while Doolittle comes back from injury might be out of luck with him nearing a return. However, Clippard should seamlessly move back to his familiar set up role, netting holds and vulture wins.

• Drew Storen wasn’t given a save opp but he still pitched a perfect inning with two strikeouts, securing the win against the Metropolitans. It’s a pain when your closer gives up runs on a work day, so it’s refreshing for Storen owners to see him pitch a clean inning in a non-save situation. Also of note in this game, Nationals prospect Sammy Solis made his majorleague debut, throwing two scoreless innings, allowing one hit and striking out one as well. Solis is an older prospect but was mentioned by Kiley McDaniel as a top 20 prospect for the Nationals earlier this year. Solis has a power arm and was touching 96+ mph in his outing tonight. Every year there are young arms that come up and are quite impressive, Solis might be a sleeper to keep an eye on and could factor into more higher leverage innings as the season moves on.

• Brett Cecil didn’t enter the game with a save situation, but he still threw a scoreless ninth, holding the four run lead for the Blue Jays. He allowed a base hit but otherwise retired all the other batters without issue. Innings like this, regardless of a save situation or not will go a long way towards Cecil maintaing the job. As we mentioned before, the biggest impediment to Cecil’s save total now may not be his fellow bullpen mates but whether or not Aaron Sanchez stays in the rotation. Roberto Osuna entered the game in the sixth and finished the seventh with Aaron Loup pitching the eighth. This might be the order of operations moving forward, but it certainly looks like Cecil’s job to lose for now.

Closer Grid:

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[Green light, yellow light, red light: the colors represent the volatility of the bullpen order.]

If you follow the Bullpen Report here, you might have noticed a new name pop up as the “second” guy in the Pittsburgh bullpen (meaning the guy behind both the closer and the guy most likely to usurp the closer). Benajmin Pasinkoff bestowed that honor on one Arquimedes Caminero in last night’s Bullpen Report, displacing Jared Hughes as the man behind the man (Tony Watson) behind the closer (Mark Melancon).

Given that I know nothing of this Arquimedes fellow other than the fact that his parents might have been trying to name him after the Greek mathemetician (I like to think Archimedes would have liked sabermetrics), I gave his player page a gander. One portion of his player page stood out in particular. Read the rest of this entry »

• Miguel Castro is out and Brett Cecil is back in as closer for Toronto. This isn’t necessarily the alignment that the Blue Jays will stick with all season but Gibbons said he will “try” Cecil as closer, with Loup-Osuna in 7th-8th. Miguel Castro will be moved to other innings and theoretically could regain the role at a later date. The fact Castro is staying in the majors might signal a somewhat legitimate commitment to him in Toronto. He and Osuna have their young warts but are very talented arms. Brett Cecil might go as far as his velocity takes him, as its been a bit of a roller coaster this year, but he was above 90 mph tonight as he recorded his first save of the year. If he’s healthy and maintains velocity like he had tonight, Cecil could hold the role but he’ll have plenty of power arms behind his back. Another road block in Cecil’s saves future could be Aaron Sanchez. If he gets demoted to the bullpen, he’s likely their best pitcher there but the Jays should continue to trot him out there every five days for a few more turns before making a change.

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• Rough break for Adam Ottavino owners as he hits the DL with inflammation in his right triceps. Ottavino’s velocity had a sudden drop in his last two outings, and now we know why. Walt Weiss said “If we have the lead in the ninth tonight, it’ll be Axford,” so I would say he is the guy to own right now in Colorado. Rafael Betancourt will certainly be in the mix, but provided Axford successfully closes his next opportunity, it would be hard seeing Weiss look to Betancourt instead. Ottavino won’t necessarily be out for long but Verlander has been dealing with a similar issue since the start of the season. We’ll be sure to keep you posted as to Ottavino’s return.

• Steve Cishek was unable to hold the one run lead for the Marlins, blowing the save against the Mets on a three-run homer by Daniel Murphy. Cishek’s defense didn’t do him any favors after Marcell Ozuna allowed Juan Larages to get to second base on a misplay in the first at bat of the inning. Still, it was a poor performance for Cishek who saw his ERA balloon to 11.37 on the year. Cishek won’t maintain a paltry 23.3% LOB% all season long, but he’ll have to start getting shutdown innings to prevent A.J. Ramos and Mike Dunn from breathing down his neck.

• Miguel Castro gave up hits and runs for the fourth time in his last five appearances. Tonight he allowed three hits and a run to the Red Sox for his second loss of the year. Roberto Osuna blew the lead in the eighth inning and Brett Cecil has struggled mightily this year, so there aren’t necessarily great options behind him as a replacement. However, Castro is also a 20 year old rookie struggling lately with major league hitters. His raw stuff is immense and the there have been no talk out of Toronto aboutof Castro being removed from the closer’s chair at the moment, but Castro will have to turn this around if he wants to stay in Toronto, not to mention the ninth inning.

• Miguel Castro’s loss netted Koji Uehara the win tonight. Uehara has been a little more brittle and a little more hittable this year but he was effective pitching a perfect ninth with two strikeouts. Uehara’s velocity dipped a bit earlier this year but he was back at 87-88 mph against the Blue Jays, which is more in line with his recent years. Junichi Tazawa is ownable in all leagues, for ratio help alone, but his chances at saves are looking slimmer so long as Uehara throws like this.

• Andrew Miller converted his eighth save in eight tries tonight continuing his awesome start for the Yankees. I still don’t think Girardi has officially named a closer, but there is also no need when it’s this obvious. In 9.1 scoreless innings pitched, Miller now has 17 strikeouts against four walks, good for a 1.34 FIP/2.06 xFIP. Meanwhile Betances, who was expected to close at the start of the season threw another scoreless inning himself lowering his 0.00 ERA to 0.00. Betances has 17 strikeouts in 11 innings pitched with a 1.91 FIP/2.50 xFIP of his own. QuanGorMo was effective several years ago on the Yankees but the BetanMiller duo has that beat and is possibly the best set up and closer option in all of baseball, real or fantasy.

• Quick Hits and Tidbits: Jeurys Familia nailed the save for the Mets and is a perfect 9-9 in save opportunities since replacing Mejia as closer. Aroldis Chapman allowed several inherited runners to score but got two outs to end the game the only way he knows how, via the strikeout. Kelvin Herrera and Wade Davis closed out the final two frames for the Royals tonight. There was no save situation involved but the Royals, particularly when Greg Holland returns, challenge the Yankees for the best relief combo in baseball. Zach McAllister threw 1.1 scoreless innings tonight, hitting 96.5 mph in the process. His stay in the bullpen could be a lengthier one and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him throw multiple solid innings out of the pen for the Indians and even inch his way up the pecking order in Cleveland.

Closer Grid:

[Green light, yellow light, red light: the colors represent the volatility of the bullpen order.]