After the Indians released incumbent closer Chris Perez at the end of last season, the team was without a stopper heading into the offseason. The team decided to cross that off their shopping list by signing former Brewers closer John Axford. After three seasons of saving games in Milwaukee, Axford lost his job so early in 2013 that he failed to record even one save. Now, Cleveland is hoping that he rebounds and that the mechanical changes he made while in St. Louis not only sticks, but was actually the root cause of his struggles in the first place.

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There seems to be plenty to love about the Cardinals bullpen here in 2014, particularly from a fantasy standpoint. And we’re not just talking about saves here. Should your league count holds and use stats such as K/9 or HRA, then this is the pen you want to sift through on draft day. The arms are young, electric and should miss an awful lot of bats this season. Read the rest of this entry »

The Pittsburgh Pirates bullpen combined for the third best bullpen ERA last year, which is especially impressive given they finished 27th in strikeout percentage. That their relief corps finished with a sub-3.00 ERA was largely due to their 78.3% left on-base percentage — which ranked in the top five in baseball. The pen of the Bucs managed to post a second best .272 BABIP which of course helped keep the LOB% high and the ERA down. Curiously the Pirates relief corps maintained a low BABIP while also posting the highest ground ball rate in the league last year, 52.0%. The fantasy talent dries up quickly after the closer and setup men, though there are holds to be had if one can find strikeouts elsewhere.

The closer
Jason Grilli

No surprise here as Grilli has been spectacular for the past several seasons. Rather than fitting in with the rest of the bullpen by getting ground outs and a few strikeouts, Grilli is the opposite. He 14.5% swinging strike rate last year led to a 36.6% strikeout rate, nearly a career high mark. Grilli does a superb job of keeping the ball in the yard, especially considering his tendency to record plenty of fly outs. His 33.0% GB% was tied for fourth lowest of any reliever with at least 10 saves, getting more grounders than only Ernesto Frieri, Huston Street, and Joe Nathan. On top of his home run prevention, last year Grilli’s 6.4% walk rate was the lowest single season mark of his career. Despite this being his age-37 season, Grilli still has plenty of zip on his fastball — it averaged over 93 mph last year — and he effectively mixes off-speed pitches to induce whiffs. While he did miss time last season due to a forearm strain, Grilli managed to come back in September and even finish the season as the closer.
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Last year the Oakland Athletics bullpen ranked in the top 10 in terms of ERA and FIP. More advanced metrics didn’t find as much favor with their body of work, as the A’s pen ranked middle of the road in terms of SIERA and xFIP. Given the park they call home, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the A’s relievers posted the second best HR/FB rate, coming in second to the Mariners. Being satisfied with the status quo usually isn’t Billy Beane’s style, and this offseason he moved around plenty of parts. There are some new faces to don the white cleats as well as some returning contributors, but the key is this team has fantasy relevant talent in this pen outside of the closer.

The closer
Jim Johnson

Johnson may be one of the new guys, but his job is secure as the club’s closer. His strong ground ball rate helps make up for his lack of swing-and-miss stuff and it is impossible to argue his recent work. Over the past two years Johnson leads baseball with 86 shutdowns against 15 meltdowns. For context, Aroldis Chapman has 80 SD and 14 MD and Craig Kimbrel has posted a 76:9 ratio. Johnson is a solid bet to gain saves and good ratios even if he lacks in the strikeout department.
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I’ve seen it said that bullpens win championships, but I think it’s probably just the last piece of the puzzle for a contending team. That’d be hard to tease out in the numbers, but it certainly doesn’t make sense for a team like the Astros to spend resources on their bullpen. They’ve taken it to the extreme in some cases, by trading any and every reliever that had any interest on the market.

That’s how you get an Astros bullpen that was by far the worst in the league last year. By a large margin. At 5.09, their FIP was almost a full run worse than second-worst (Cubs, 4.23). And they ‘accrued’ -5.4 wins. The other four teams with below-replacement pens lost .2 wins or less to their relievers as a group. So, yeah, it was a really bad bullpen.

Two thoughts come to mind about a bad bullpen. The first is that there’s always opportunity in situations like those. Bad teams make for sleepers, since the traditional media focuses on better teams and those players get more name recognition. So don’t ignore the team. But! Bad teams — especially those that don’t score a lot of runs and have bad bullpens around the closer — bad teams do not provide a lot of save opportunities.

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When the Angels acquired Ernesto Frieri from the Padres in May of 2012, they knew they were getting a strikeout machine, but were aware that those strikeouts came with a cost — namely, walks and lots and lots of fly balls. And at the time, he was just a middle reliever who had shown the overall skills to close, but had yet to be afforded such an opportunity. He then continued to dominate and eventually became the undisputed man at the end of the bullpen for the Halos.

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One relief pitcher trait I like to have on hand during draft season is how much of a split has a pitcher displayed over his career against right- and left-handed hitters. Most teams don’t want their closer to have a large split because with all hands on deck in the ninth, the opposing manager will use up all his available platoon options. The reason a pitcher may or may not have a split may be many, but truthfully I don’t have time to evaluate each relief pitcher in detail (and still stay married) so I use this nice little cheat sheet.

I examined which pitchers have historically small or large handedness splits and how much to take them into account when valuing the relief pitcher for a closer’s role.

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When the news broke that the Tigers signed veteran closer Joe Nathan, Detroit GM Dave Dombrowski also announced that the team and the man who finished the 2013 season as their closer, Joaquin Benoit, would be parting ways, citing that the 35-year old righthander was no longer “a fit for the Tigers.” With that, Benoit jumped into the free agent pool and came away with a two-year, $15.5 million contract from the San Diego Padres where he is expected to fill the exact same role he filled for Detroit when he first signed with them back in 2011; a bridge between starter and closer with the potential to close out games, if needed. The deal works well for both parties as Benoit gets a contract comparable to what free agent closers have been getting and the Padres get a replacement for, and upgrade to, Luke Gregerson. Read the rest of this entry »

As you may have surmised, this week we here at RotoGraphs are looking at relief pitchers this week. Much of the focus tends to be spent on closers, but seeing as how volatile the ‘position’ is, the set-up men deserve their proper due. And one of the more reliable set-up men over the last few years who certainly deserves the recognition is none other than Luke Gregerson. The former Padres reliever has been a staple in the San Diego bullpen and given the frailty of Huston Street, the Padres longtime closer, he’s been as close to a must-own reliever as you can get without regularly accruing saves. However, now that Gregerson has landed in Oakland, his value heads south for a variety of reasons. Read the rest of this entry »

The 2013 fantasy baseball season has come to a close, so it is time to look back at the season past and determine which players were the most valuable at each position. This week focuses on relief pitchers.

The players were ranked based on their 2013 production, using the evaluation system explained and updated on this site some time ago. To keep things manageable and avoid skewing the numbers, players were only considered if they amassed 40 innings over the course of the year. The replacement level was also adjusted to account for players eligible at multiples positions. The valuations are built for $260 budgets and traditional 5×5 roto fantasy leagues, where only one catcher is started.

One important thing to note is the premium (or lack thereof) placed on the position a player occupies in your lineup. For example, while a first baseman may be able to accumulate superior overall numbers, the availability of such production lower in the rankings severely dampers the amount the player was worth.

These rankings are meant to reflect a player’s value should he have occupied this spot in your lineup for the entire year. So, a player who missed time due to injury but put up great numbers during his time on the field would be worth less.

With all this in mind, here are your rankings. Read the rest of this entry »