Below are the notable pitcher playing time changes in the last 48 hours or so. For further detail on the methodology and more recent changes, my first rundown from Tuesday is here.

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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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Following up on yesterday’s post going over position player playing time changes, we now turn our attention to the pitchers. Unlike hitters, where all playing time is shown in plate appearances, we’re splitting into two tables here. Starters are shown with games started, and relievers are shown with relief innings. When looking at our projections on a player page, you’ll notice that for all relievers, innings and games pitched are the same; that’s just how our projection system works to allocate reliever innings. I’d pay more attention to the innings, since the projected games pitched number will often be higher than the actually-expected number simply to inflate a pitcher’s innings to what we feel is accurate.

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One Ottoneu manager’s cuts are another Ottoneu manager’s auction bids. But take heed pretend baseball general manager! These pitchers were cut for a reason. Maybe their signature pitch no longer fell out of the zone at the last split second like it used to. Maybe injury has the general public concerned. But, maybe those criticisms will be your opportunities. This article provides some context about the pitchers who were dropped the most at the keeper deadline, using “% of leagues with a cut in the last 7 days” as the starting point.
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2/3/25

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to our Patreon!!

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• Jason Collette – Co-Host
• Justin Mason – Host/Producer

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Tanner Scott signed with the Dodgers earlier this week and you may be wondering, does that make him a top 10 closer going into the 2025 season? Certainly, it must change his pre-trade auction calculator (Steamer) ranking of 14th, right? Roster Resource lists Scott as the Dodger closer for now, but Michael Kopech, Blake Treinen, and maybe even Evan Phillips may cut in on his save counts. And what if the Dodgers score so many runs with their high-powered offense that Scott doesn’t get the opportunity to earn a save often enough? Does being on a really good team limit a team’s save accumulation? Read the rest of this entry »

If you have been reading my content or following me on Twitter (or now on Bluesky) over the years, you know my stance on RP. If not, here is the TL;DR of everything I have ever written about relievers in Ottoneu: I don’t like to spend on them. Go cheap on the pen, spend elsewhere. But, to be transparent, that was always more a vibes-based thing than real analysis. Until now.

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What is different about the cutter? Scroll down to the bar chart below to see that it is in the zone the least of the three fastballs (four-seamer, sinker, cutter) analyzed in this series. In the zone the least, yet swung on the most. Heck, it’s even chased out of the zone by hitters the most. That’s the cutter. When executed correctly, it cuts in on a batter’s hands or it tails away from the barrel. How else does it compare to the four-seamer and sinker? In this article, we conclude the “Know Your Averages” series with a jammed hitter, a broken bat, and a sore palm.

Four-seamers | Sinkers | Cutters
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When you have a pitch that can be thrown in the zone, induce weak contact, and get called strikes, you throw it and you throw it often. However, last season (2023) the sinker’s usage hit its lowest point within the Statcast era among starting pitchers, down to 13.9%. A slight resurgence this season has brought its usage up to 15.0%. Compared to a 22.8% usage in 2015, the start of the statcast era, the sinker no longer sits at the popular kid’s lunch table.

However, if we change the split to view the sinkers utilization by relievers, we see the resurgence started earlier and with a little more gusto:

Relievers have been doing crazy things with their sinkers when you look at the data. The obvious ones like throwing it faster with more movement are apparent, but throwing it in unusual locations seems to be a thing. While all those small changes are occurring, we can still rely on what is happening on average to help us make quick comparisons. For example, a swinging strike rate of 10% on a four-seam fastball is average. A 10% swinging strike rate on a sinker is really good. This post serves to help navigate benchmark statistics on the sinker.

Four-seamers | Sinkers | Cutters
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OK right out of the gate I gotta say that Lucas outshined me here! His fantastic charts were a great addition to his pitcher breakdowns. I do not have charts… but I do have thoughts!

• Lucas Kelly covered Pitchers Pt. 1 here
• Jeff Zimmerman covered the Hitters here

Upgrade

• Jack Flaherty to LAD: The team context improvement is a massive upgrade and easily dwarfs any sort of park/division difficulty losses.
• Erick Fedde 페디 to STL: An even bigger team context improvement than Flaherty’s that also comes with a little park upgrade in terms of HR suppression (99 in CHW to 93 in STL), though it is worth noting that Guarantee Rate plays to a 99 composite Park Factor while Busch Stadium is at 101.
• Lucas Erceg to KCR: Breakout RP star lands in KCR at just the right moment with James McArthur toting a 5.31 ERA (including 9 ER in 8 appearances this month) and recently acquired Hunter Harvey nursing a back injury. The former hitting prospect sits 99 mph, has a healthy 19% K-BB, and probably deserves better than his 3.58 ERA (3.08 SIERA). A worthy SVs spec this weekend.
• Trevor Rogers to BAL: Team context alone lands Rogers here in the upgrade portion. He hasn’t been the 2021 stud we saw, but I’m certainly not out on him and excited to see what Baltimore can do with him. This might pay bigger dividends in 2025, but I like it. He hasn’t allowed more than 3 ER in any of his L9 which is nice but still comes with a meager 9% K-BB rate in 48 IP of work.

Neutral

• Alex Cobb to CLE: Cobb’s just too much of an unknown to say this an upgrade as he’s yet to throw a major league pitch this year. Team improvement is mitigated by the park downgrade He is slated to make a rehab start on Saturday, August 3rd and he could join Cleveland after that. I’m OK speculating on Cobb in 15-teamers for the stash, but keep your expectations tempered with the oft-injured-but-talented righty.
• Frankie Montas to MIL: Yes, it’s a team context upgrade for sure but will Montas actually be able to leverage it while eating up some innings? His 9% K-BB is half what it was during his 2019-22 run (3.67 ERA, 1.22 WHIP, 18% K-BB in 480 IP) and his 1.4 HR9 won’t get a total reprieve in Milwaukee as American Family Field still sits 8th in HR Park Factor (Cincy is 1st, so it is a noteworthy park boost).
• Jake Bloss to TOR: There is more opportunity in Toronto as they aren’t contending, but he won’t yet be able to take advantage of it as he was sent to Triple-A after the trade and of course, it’s a worse team context. GM Ross Atkins has suggested this demotion might be temporary, though, giving Bloss a chance to breathe and process the trade before being thrust back into a big-league rotation. Stay tuned for his return as he could be a worthy streaming option in deeper formats. That said, I’m more excited about his 2025 and beyond outlook.

Downgrade

• Paul Blackburn to NYM: Better team and better overall park, but it’s worse for HRs (83 OAK, 99 NYM) which is Blackburn’s biggest issue this year (1.4 HR9). Maybe it’s more neutral than downgrade because while I am already out for next week with a trip to COL on the docket, I love the OAK/MIA 2-step at home (yes, even w/the elevated HR outlook) that sets up for the following week. It’s still only a deep league play but not a bad downballot pitcher play this weekend as that Coors start should temper prices.
• James Paxton to BOS: Worse team, worse ballpark, and still running just a 5% K-BB this year. On the other hand, he’s back with pitching coach Andrew Bailey and was moderately successful in Boston last year (17% K-BB, 4.50 ERA, 1.31 WHIP). Could be streamable, but I don’t want his at KCR/v. HOU 2-step next week so I’ll pass on bidding this week in anything but maybe AL-Only where anyone breathing has some intrigue.

Closers No Longer Closing… At Least For Now

Essentially just a subset of the downgrade category

• Carlos Estévez to PHI: He is the best positioned amongst this group because while he joins a deep bullpen, they do not currently have a locked in A-tier closer. Jeff Hoffman is having a brilliant season and could no doubt handle the role, but they like having flexibility to bring him in whenever they want so adding another stud in Estévez could push Hoffman to a more permanent fireman role with Estévez getting the bulk of the SVs. José Alvarado isn’t going anywhere and leads the team with 13 SVs, but I think Hoffman/Estévez are the plays for SVs. Even still, he was the full-time close in LAA so this is a loss.
• Tanner Scott to SDP: Fantasy folks really wanted him to head to LAD and take over their shaky closer’s role, instead he joins arguably the strongest pen in baseball. He should still garner occasional SVs when a throng of lefties are due up in the 9th, but Robert Suarez is pretty locked in as the guy.
• Yimi García to SEA: Stuck behind Andrés Muñoz, but having a truly brilliant season (2.45 ERA, 0.76 WHIP, 30% K-BB in 33 IP) so should be the first man up should something open up. This one stings a lot less because he wasn’t the full-time guy with Toronto anyway so not many were banking on his limited SVs (5 so far this yr).