Many fantasy baseball championships are won on draft day. Others, with shrewd moves throughout the season. And (probably) a smaller portion of owners are able to hoist a flag by 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 whatever categories they need to do so as we make the turn for the homestretch.
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The home stretch is here. For some owners looking to gain some ground in their roto leagues, it may be time to take on some risk for the potential reward. In head-to-head leagues the case may not be the same, unless of course, your primary holds guys have been lost in a bullpen shuffle somewhere.

At any rate, here are a few arms to consider adding if they’re available in your leagues.
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The trade deadline, trips to the disabled list and suspensions significantly altered bullpens across the league in the last thirty days. Subsequently, fantasy baseballers in holds leagues were likely scrambling to find the “next man in” to continue their quest for the playoffs as each respective domino fell. Still looking to make a late-season surge? Here’s a quick look at my top sixty middle relievers over the past month.
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The landscape of many team’s bullpens are likely to change in the forthcoming weeks as MLB’s trade deadline approaches. With that in mind, those in leagues that do not use a waiver or FAAB system should be camping out by the computer or glued to their fancy hands-free device ready to pounce on the next man in.

However, we’re not there just yet. So, here’s a look at a few lesser-owned middle relievers who’ve been providing owners in holds leagues some joy over the past two weeks.
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In a time where names like Stephen Strasburg, Mike Trout, Bryce Harper and Gerrit Cole are dominating the headlines, rookie hype is making it awfully difficult for fantasy owners to acquire the services of several youngsters who are supposed to be leading us into a new generation of MLB superstars. But occasionally we get lucky and some diamonds-in-the-rough pass through without too much fanfare and linger on your waiver wire until they break out with a big game that lands them on an ESPN or MLB Network highlight reel. Darin Ruf and Sonny Gray may be well-known to the hardcore fantasy players, but without someone standing on a soapbox with a bullhorn, screaming “Pick this guy up now,” both seem to have slipped through the cracks in many leagues. Read the rest of this entry »

Back at it with another edition of “Scheming For Relief” after a well-deserved two-week vacation. I apologize to the middle relief “die-hards” out there for the absence of this piece over that time, but I know my colleague Ben at the Bullpen Report kept y’all up to speed nicely.

This week I went an arm on the rise, an arm on the mend and an unowned arm. While the first is likely owned in holds leagues, he’s on the verge of being owned in all formats. The other two, well, read for yourself and hope it helps! Cheers!

All ownership percentages reflect Yahoo! leagues.

Steve Delabar | Blue Jays | 3%

Over the past two weeks, Steve Delabar owns a 0.00 ERA with three holds and a league-best 14 strikeouts among relievers. On the season the Blue Jay boasts a 30% K% and a 13.6% BB%, but his numbers against the most recent 28 batters he’s faced are far superior: 50% K% and 10.7 BB%. The right-hander is inducing swinging strikes at an 18.1% clip over that time frame, up from 13.9% SwStr% on the year and 15% SwStr% for his career. It appears as if he’s been using his slider a tad less and relying on the splitter a bit more as of late, which could be one cause for the jump in missed bats. At any rate, Delabar is moving from the “should be owned in holds leagues” classification to the “useful middle reliever in all formats” category for those in need of steady whiffs, ratios and the occasional scab win. If your WHIP is a major concern, keep an eye on the 29-year-old’s walks to make sure the recent improvement isn’t just a mirage.

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