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

Guest: Greg Jewett

Strategy Section

• General closer player pool observations
• What price points should you purchase closers at?
  • General strategy
• Is purchasing closers through FAAB a good investment?
• What skills or information should you look at to speculate on closers in waiting?
• Stay away from closers on bad teams?
• When is it worthwhile to roster a closer handcuff?
• Should you worry that a closer will be traded mid-season (enough to affect a buying/rostering decision)?

Closer Situations

• Discussion of all 30 MLB team closer situations

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Thanks to reader and LOTR enthusiast “Gandalfsstaff” for the comment they made on my article last week:

What if you hopped in the DeLorean and used the new formula pretending it was last year? Would it have predicted better picks in hindsight?

In that article, I wrote about the recipe I concocted, on the shoulders of giants, to target pitchers. I used the skills components in Ron Shandler’s LIMA plan and metrics from Eno Sarris’ pitching models to try and identify great pitchers in the upcoming 2024 season. The recipe included 2023 end-of-season stats and 2024 projected stats:

ATC 2024 Projections

• LIMA: K%>=25%, BB<10%, HR/9<1.3

2023 End-of-Season Actuals

• Stuff+ Fastball (FA, SI, FC) >=100
• Stuff+ Secondary (SL, CH, KC, CU, FS) >=100
• A called strike rate (CStr%, SIS) >12%
• Pitched at least 50 innings in 2023

Names like Zac Gallen, Gerrit Cole, and Corbin Burnes (new Oriole, no big deal) floated to the top of the bubbling, steaming pot. Ok, enough with the cooking metaphor. There’s a problem, though, with back-testing this recipe on last year’s data as Gandalfsstaff suggested. The K%, BB%, and HR/9 used in the recipe were projected by ATC. I don’t have data on last season’s projections. Next season’s Stuff+ metrics, also, aren’t specifically projected. Stuff+ is used to make projections, but we don’t see a fastball Stuff+ projection for Gerrit Cole in 2024. However, as you will see, Cole’s fastball will likely be very similar in 2024 to how it was in 2023. As complicated as that all sounds, back-testing to see which pitchers met all the requirements of the recipe by year’s end is not. Let’s go back in time. Here are the pitchers who accomplished all the bullet points above by the end of the 2022 season:

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Now that looks pretty darn good. Anyone of those seven starters could have anchored a fantasy rotation. The true secret ingredient here is a dominant fastball. My attempt at creating a recipe pre-season 2023 did not turn out well because I wasn’t using the best metrics. pVals are not predictive and they didn’t belong in my preseason analysis. Stuff+, however, is predictive:

You can read all about the predictive power of Stuff+ and other pitching models, but the chart above explains a lot. Fastball Stuff+ is generally repeatable year-to-year. This is nothing new. Once a pitcher has a dominant fastball, they can work their secondaries with more success. Hitters, bless their hearts, have enough to deal with when a fastball’s Stuff+ rating gets above 100. Furthermore, the ability of a pitcher to earn called strikes is important because he needs something that brings the bat off the hitter’s shoulder when the hitter has the advantage. Sure a pitcher has a good fastball and secondaries, but if those pitches rarely get a “Strike!” from the umpire, hitters can just become observers. Finally, the LIMA plan skill components from days of old were just as good in 2021 and 2022. You can’t fake striking someone out. Let’s take a look at who followed this recipe to the flour-stained, bottom of the pages in 2021:

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Once again, the recipe yields positive results. Don’t get too hopeful about this recipe, it’s difficult to predict which pitchers will end 2024 having met all of the very challenging criteria above. It’s even more difficult for even the top-most gifted pitchers in the world to go out and do it! If I were stuck with only one statistic to predict with confidence for the upcoming season, I would choose innings pitched every single time. Nestor Cortes was awesome in 2022 but dealt with injury all 2023 long, limiting his innings pitched and therefore, a repeat great season. If only I were Biff Howard Tannen. Unfortunately, we can’t predict anything with that much confidence, so relying on repeatable skills and moving forward with fingers crossed seems to be the best way to go.

Last season around this time I wrote an article showcasing a recipe that would help select starting pitching in drafts. I queried the heck out of a dataset containing 2022 end-of-season pitcher data and 2023 projected data, slicing and splicing the list down to an interesting group of pitchers, each having done or expected to do the following:

• A SwStr% in 2022 of at least 11%. (2022 MLB SP average – 10.7%)
• A K/9 projection (steamer) of eight or better. (2022 MLB SP average – 8.18)
• Positive pVals (Pitch Info) on at least two pitches in 2022.
• An ADP greater than 100.

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When something becomes sexy, I’m all in. Crocs and socks? Sexy. Minivans with a built-in vacuum cleaner to suck up all the floor Cheerios? Sexy. Throwing a four-seam fastball with a very shallow vertical approach angle due to some serious induced vertical break at the top of the zone? Sexy. Some things some people just can’t pull off. But when a trend becomes a trend, you’re either in or you’re out.

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Just 15 pitchers threw 10 or more 101+ MPH four-seam fastballs in 2024.

There are a lot of pitchers who throw fast and only 15 find themselves qualifying here as repeatable flame throwers. Jhoan Duran did it 368 times! Behind him was Félix Bautista who anyone would guess can throw the ball fast after one glance at La Montaña. But, Shintaro Fujinami? He’s on the list? He’s a free agent? Surely some team could use a guy like that. So, why hasn’t any team ventured a bid on a reliever whose fastball velocity ranks in the 97th percentile?

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The Pitching Ninja episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Rob Friedman

Interview

• How did Pitching Ninja come about?
• When did you realize that you’ve made it to the big time?
• Major league pitchers benefiting from watching and interacting with Pitching Ninja
• What is the difference beteween a sweeper and a slider?
• The effect of the new rule changes on baseball and on pitching
  • The incerase of performance variance between starts
• Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week
  • Swinging strike rates
  • Called strike rates
• How will swinging strike rates fare in 2024?
• Are batters trying to put the ball more in play, or are still swinging for the fences?
• How is a GIF pronounced?
• What is the most important aspect of analytics for pitchers these days?
• What has been Pitching Ninja’s impact on the fantasy baseball world?

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With Jacob deGrom and Walker Buehler coming back from their second Tommy John surgery (TJS), I wanted to go back and look at how pitchers performed after going under the knife a second time. While I had high hopes this study would find some useful adjustments, the results were mixed and probably point to the pitcher being more of the same. Read the rest of this entry »

Keeping track of the machinations of 30 major league bullpens is pretty tricky. In standard leagues, it’s hard enough trying to discern which relievers are earning save opportunities, especially since more and more teams are using a committee approach in the ninth inning. In Ottoneu, with both saves and holds earning points, that search for high leverage relievers becomes even more of a challenge. There are plenty of resources out there — the Roster Resource Closer Depth Chart is one of my favorites — but even the most vigilant fantasy player can’t keep track of everything going on across the majors.

Today, I’m going to focus on four teams who have had a recent bullpen shakeup (either due to the trade deadline or injury) where there are new opportunities for high leverage work. The relievers listed below are rostered in less than 60% of all Ottoneu leagues.

Félix Bautista’s elbow injury has opened up new high leverage opportunities in Baltimore’s bullpen. Yannier Cano should receive the bulk of the ninth inning duties and has already earned a save and a loss. Behind him, Danny Coulombe and DL Hall will probably be called on in the seventh and eighth innings. The former was just activated off the IL last week and had been working in high leverage opportunities for most of the season prior to that. Hall might be the pitcher with the highest upside in Baltimore’s bullpen. He was called up when Bautista hit the IL and his velocity was up nearly four ticks from where it was back in April when he had a brief stint in the majors. He’s got the prospect pedigree and a deep repertoire to thrive in short stints out of the bullpen; the only thing you’ll need to keep an eye on is his command.

Adbert Alzolay and Mark Leiter Jr. have the eighth and ninth innings locked down in the Cubs bullpen but Michael Fulmer’s elbow injury has opened up some opportunities behind those two. Julian Merryweather looks like he’ll be the main beneficiary. It looked like he had broken out way back in April of 2021 but an oblique strain curtailed that season. He struggled through last season in Toronto and made his way to the Cubs this year. Since the beginning of July, he’s collected 10 holds while racking up 32 strikeouts in 23.1 innings (a 32.7% strikeout rate). More importantly, his fastball velocity has ticked up as the season has progressed and he’s now averaging over 98 mph like he was two years ago during his brief breakout.

When the Mariners traded away Paul Sewald at the trade deadline, it opened up the ninth inning for Andrés Muñoz to take the reins as closer and allowed a number of other relievers to begin earning high leverage work in the seventh and eighth innings. Justin Topa had been receiving a lot of those opportunities early in the season and he’s been relied on even further. He’s been a frequent recommendation in this column this year and yet he’s rostered in less than 50% of Ottoneu leagues. He’s allowed just a single unearned run in August — a Manfred man in an extra innings game — and just three runs total since the beginning of July. The other relievers in Seattle’s bullpen earning new high leverage innings are Gabe Speier and Tayler Saucedo. The former is a lefty groundball specialist who has collected five holds in August while the latter actually earned some brief ninth inning work when the M’s were trying to limit Muñoz’s and Matt Brash’s workload.

The Rays have had trouble all season long building a bridge to Jason Adam and Pete Fairbanks in the eighth and ninth innings. Right now, it looks like some combination of Colin Poche, Robert Stephenson, and Andrew Kittredge are seeing the most high leverage looks behind those other two relievers. Stephenson is the one who is flying under the radar right now; since being acquired from Pittsburgh in June, he’s running a gaudy 41.2% strikeout rate in Tampa Bay. He’s earned holds in his last two appearances and might be on his way towards earning more high leverage opportunities if he can continue striking out so many batters. The biggest difference maker for him is a new cutter that was introduced to his repertoire upon joining his new team; that pitch is generating a ridiculous 59.5% whiff rate, the highest in baseball for that pitch type. Kittredge is another name to monitor; he was working as the Rays closer towards the end of 2021 and into 2022 before undergoing Tommy John surgery. He earned a save in his first appearance off the IL a few weeks ago and could work his way back into high leverage opportunities if his skills haven’t deteriorated post-surgery.

• Using Game-By-Game Fastball Velocity to Influence SP Sit/Start Decisions by Lucas Kelly
• MLB pitching models should incorporate recency, giving us an intriguing ranks update by Eno Sarris
• Baseball’s ‘Hot Hand’ Is Real by Rob Arthur and Greg Matthews

This article won’t take the place of my weekly RotoGraphs article and will not have much analysis. Instead, it will only provide data tables for your own analysis.

Quick Note: The data for this article is through games played on August 21st.

Relievers

Relievers only qualify to be placed in the table below if they have three appearances in the last 25 days. Though the time range is 25 days, the calculation only includes the three most recent appearances. In addition, I have isolated the table to relievers who have displayed an average change of .60 or greater in either direction (increase vs. decrease). We should take reliever velocity changes a little less seriously, due to the short nature of their appearances on any given night. For example, Félix Bautista often shows up on the “Fallers” list, but he throws 100+ often. If one night he comes out and gets an easy three outs without having to throw his fastest fastball, he’s going to appear as a faller. On the flip side, I would imagine he’s starting to get tired at this point in the season, so it’s worth monitoring.

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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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