With the MLB trade deadline behind us and the dust still settling, it can be a bit tricky to sort out all the implications for every player moved in a trade this week. It becomes all the more difficult for relievers — both where they fit in the bullpen hierarchy on their new team and how their old team will handle the pecking order. This edition of the Ottonue Relief Pitcher Drip will be devoted to figuring some of those situations while also recommending some under-rostered pitchers who might find themselves in high leverage roles now.

The White Sox were one of the most aggressive sellers this season, trading away six members of their pitching staff including nearly every reliever who had earned high leverage work this year. Gone are Kendall Graveman, Reynaldo López, Keynan Middleton, and Joe Kelly. That means Gregory Santos is the most likely candidate to pick up save opportunities with Aaron Bummer a possibility as well. I covered Santos the last time this column ran in mid-July and his outlook hasn’t changed much since then. He’s still striking out a decent number of batters and his walk rate is still a pristine 5.0%.

The Royals shipped their closer Scott Barlow off to San Diego at the deadline which means Carlos Hernández will likely step in to handle the ninth inning duties. A failed starter with a hard, riding fastball and a nasty slider, he’s managed to hone the command issues that plagued him in longer outings. He’s cut his walk rate more than four points to just 7.4% this year while also pushing his strikeout rate north of 30%. That’s a definite recipe for success. Beyond Hernández, there really isn’t anyone else in Kansas City’s bullpen worth targeting.

In one of the bigger surprises this week, the Mariners traded their closer Paul Sewald to the Diamondbacks. Seattle already had their closer of the future Andrés Muñoz working the eighth inning ahead of Sewald which makes him the obvious candidate to work the ninth inning now. Matt Brash is almost universally rostered in Ottoneu thanks to his outrageous stuff so the overlooked high leverage reliever in Seattle’s bullpen is almost certainly Justin Topa. He had struggled with a laundry list of injuries with the Brewers, accumulating just 17 appearances across his first three seasons in the big leagues. Finally healthy, he’s been a solid option in high leverage situations for the M’s this year. His sinker-slider combo doesn’t produce a ton of strikeouts but he limits walks and keeps the ball on the ground which is a profile that plays well in Ottoneu.

Joe Kelly isn’t gaining an opportunity to earn more high leverage work because relievers ahead of him on the depth chart were traded away. Instead, he was the guy traded away. He’s joining a Dodgers bullpen that’s had plenty of issues finding consistent performers this year. It isn’t immediately clear where he lands in the pecking order since he’s only appeared in a single game for Los Angeles, coming in during the sixth inning after Caleb Ferguson ran into trouble. His brand of effective wildness is well known by now, though his strikeout rate is now at a career-high 32.3%.

The Cardinals were the other big sellers at the deadline, trading away two relievers from their bullpen. With Ryan Helsley sidelined indefinitely and Jordan Hicks now in Toronto, the obvious choice to work the ninth inning should have been Giovanny Gallegos. Instead, the man who received the first save opportunity on Sunday was JoJo Romero who also worked the ninth inning in a non-save situation yesterday. This is a situation that definitely bears monitoring. Gallegos has been receiving high leverage work in the Cardinals bullpen for four years now so it’s possible they’re trying out different options in the ninth inning to evaluate what they have to work with moving forward. Romero was a highly regarded prospect in the Phillies organization at one point. Both his slider and changeup have whiff rates over 40%, giving him two plus weapons in his arsenal.

If you only play in a 12-team mixed or shallower league, chances are you have rarely, if ever, rostered a non-closing relief pitcher, let alone included him in your active lineup. However, in deep leagues, especially mono formats, non-closing relievers can earn meaningful fantasy value, even without recording a single save. As starting pitcher innings have declined (only eight amassed at least 200 innings last year, versus a whopping 31 back in 2012, for example!), the gap in wins and strikeouts between starters and relievers have shrunk, increasing the value of relievers vs starters in deeper fantasy leagues. So these relievers are now more valuable than they had been, which means it’s worth researching them regularly, as pitchers are promoted from the minors all the time.

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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.

Here are a few relievers who have been seeing high leverage usage over the last two weeks, who are also rostered in less than 60% of all Ottoneu leagues:

The Brewers have struggled to find someone to consistently set up Devin Williams in their bullpen hierarchy. Peter Strzelecki held that role for the first two months of the season but he was demoted to Triple-A after a rough patch in June. Abner Uribe has gotten plenty of attention as a possible high-leverage option based on his solid minor league track record but fantasy owners are currently overlooking the guy who is actually getting work in the eighth inning: Joel Payamps. Acquired alongside William Contreras in the big Sean Murphy trade this offseason, the Brewers have had Payamps really lean into his slider as a member of their organization and the results have followed. He’s struck out nearly 30% of the batters he’s faced this season and has collected a hold in 15 of his last 22 appearances while compiling a 1.21 ERA and 2.79 FIP during that stretch. Payamps isn’t the only reliever listed above; Elvis Peguero has been seeing a ton of high-leverage work recently as well. He’s earned a hold in eight of his last ten appearances, though his strikeout rate isn’t as strong as his bullpen-mate.

Lucas Sims and Grant Anderson were featured the last time I wrote about under-rostered relievers and their outlook hasn’t really changed all that much. The former has gotten his command issues under control and has continued to pitch in high-leverage situations in Cincinnati. The Rangers bullpen has been shaken up a bit by the addition of Aroldis Chapman and the injury to Josh Sborz. Anderson is currently listed as a middle reliever by Roster Resource but he earned a hold in his last outing. Then again, his last appearance prior to the All-Star break lasted four innings in mop up duty.

I don’t recommend chasing after high-leverage opportunities on teams like the A’s or the Royals since they’re so few and far between. If you did want to, Trevor May is the ninth inning guy in Oakland and readily available in most Ottoneu leagues. You may want to keep an eye on Shintaro Fujinami however. After being relegated to the bullpen after a month in the rotation, he’s started to figure things out recently. Over his last ten appearances, he’s run a 3.00 ERA backed by a 2.45 FIP and he hasn’t allowed a single walk while striking out 13. He hasn’t collected a hold or a walk in that time, but that’s more to do with his team context than his abilities.

High-leverage work in the White Sox bullpen has been a revolving door due to injuries and ineffectiveness. Gregory Santos might be the current beneficiary of all that churn; he’s collected three holds and a save across his last seven outings. His biggest issue as a prospect in San Francisco’s farm system was a lack of command. He’s managed to figure out that aspect of his profile — he’s walked just 5.0% of the batters he’s faced this year — while continuing to strike out a decent number of batters. The key has been swapping in a sinker for his four-seamer while continuing to rely on his fantastic slider as his primary pitch.

Speaking of teams who are struggling to figure out their bullpen, the Cardinals have now turned to Chris Stratton in high-leverage situations recently. At this point in his career, Stratton is a fairly well known quantity; his high-spin fastball and curveball combo give him a pretty solid foundation. Still, he doesn’t have the same kind of high ceiling as some of the other arms on this list. Chase the opportunity in St. Louis if you want, but be ready to cut him loose if he falls out of the high-leverage picture.

The Rays have surprisingly had one of the worst bullpens in baseball this year, specifically struggling to find guys to bridge from their starters to Jason Adam and Pete Fairbanks in the eighth and ninth innings. Amazingly enough, it might be their Rule-5 pick, Kevin Kelly, who is rising up the hierarchy recently. He’s a sidearming righty with a heavy sinker and a sweeping slider. His strikeout rate isn’t much to look at but his funky delivery and diving pitch movement make it nearly impossible for batters to elevate off him with authority. He hasn’t allowed a run since May 12 and he earned an easy hold in his first appearance after the All-Star break.

I have a major love-hate relationship with the STUFFF metrics. After just a few pitches, useful information becomes available to determine if a pitcher has improved or not. On the other hand, the issue I have against STUFFF is the lack of transparency and values change as the dataset increases. With all the STUFFF talk, all I want to know is how changes in it will affect a pitcher’s fantasy-relevant stats. In my first article, I set some ERA baselines for the STUFFF values. The next step is to understand what a change in a STUFFF value has on a pitcher. For example, if I hear their Stuff+ jumps from 90 to 110, why should I care? Is the pitcher’s ERA going to drop by 1.00 or by 0.10 or not at all? I decided to just make a major data dump to have a reference when a STUFFF value does move.

Caution: The following values may or may not be predictive. They could just be descriptive. There is just not enough information (2 years of information) to run any ideal predictive test at this point, especially with STUFFF’s vagueness and everchanging nature.

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On a personal level, the All-Star break can be declared a success as I’ve made major improvements to my pitch result evaluator, pERA. I was supposed to do dive into it last season, but I spent most of the time dealing with the league’s new rules so this update got pushed off until now. I planned on adding Ball Percentage (Ball%), Called Strikes (CStr%), and StatCast batted ball information. I felt each add would provide a clearer picture of the pitcher’s pitches. I eventually found out I was double counting the same information with Ball% and CStr% and needed to remove one. 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.

Here are a few relievers who have been seeing high leverage usage over the last two weeks, who are also rostered in less than 60% of all Ottoneu leagues:

Chris Martin is currently the primary setup guy ahead of Kenley Jansen in the Red Sox ‘pen. His strikeout rate isn’t as high as it was last year with the Cubs and Dodgers but his walk rate is still a tidy 2.6%. Nothing has really changed in his profile; his swinging strike rate is right in line with where it was last year and his CSW% is up to a career high 30.7%. I’d expect his strikeout rate to bounce back towards where it was, giving him a bit more ceiling than his surface-level stats would indicate.

I wrote up Josh Sborz the last time I looked at under-rostered relievers and his roster rate barely ticked up from 0.3% to 1.9%! He’s definitely taken hold of the eighth inning duties in the Rangers bullpen ahead of closer Will Smith and his FIP is currently the lowest among this group. He currently has a career-high strikeout rate at 36.8% and his walk rate has come down two points from his career norm. More importantly, he’s only allowed a single home run this year, something that had plagued him in the past. Grant Anderson was called up by the Rangers at the end of May and has already inserted himself into the late inning picture. He dazzled in his debut, throwing 2.2 innings and striking out seven.

Justin Lawrence has taken over closing duties for the Rockies. He’s using his big sweeping slider to earn swings and misses, though his overall strikeout rate is held back by a sinker that’s used to get weak contact on the ground. Still, that’s a benefit for a reliever pitching in Coors Field and he’s only allowed a single home run this year and a 95th percentile barrel rate.

Sam Hentges missed more than a month of the season with a spring shoulder injury but has come back strong and has converted a number of high leverage opportunities for the excellent Guardians bullpen. He’s collected seven holds and has been used for multiple innings a handful of times as well. His command has been uncharacteristically off, though that might just be him still shaking off the rust after his injury. He’s throwing in the zone as often as he was last year, but his chase rate has fallen by nearly eight points.

Lucas Sims missed most of last year and some of this year with a back injury, but he returned in late-April and has taken his place as the primary setup guy in Cincinnati. He really struggled with his command after being activated off the IL, though he’s only walked two batters over his last six outings. Back in 2020, it looked like he had taken a big step forward as a lockdown reliever and the slider that drove that success is still intact. Opposing batters are whiffing 45.7% of the time they offer at his breaking ball, right in line with the whiff rates he ran in 2020 and ‘21.

After bouncing around three different organizations over the last three years, it looks like Chris Devenski has finally rediscovered the changeup that made him one of the best relievers in baseball all the way back in his debut season in 2016. His FIP across the last six seasons has been an ugly 4.27 with a decent 3.71 strikeout-to-walk ratio. This year, he’s throwing his changeup more often than ever, it’s returning a whiff rate close to 40%, and he only walked the first two batters of his season yesterday. He’s taken hold of the eighth inning role in the Angels bullpen.

With Ben Joyce sidelined with an elbow injury, another young relief arm for the Angels has stepped into high leverage opportunities in his place. José Soriano was called up in early-June and has picked up holds in three of his first four appearances in the big leagues. The flamethrowing righty had been a starting prospect in the past but command issues forced him into the bullpen for Los Angeles. He’s currently unrostered in Ottoneu.

The Bullpen Update episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Greg Jewett

Strategy Section

• Optimal pre-season closer draft strategy
• Mid-season / second chance closer draft strategy
• The value of middle relievers on your roster
• The effect of the new MLB rules on pitchers
• Rostering closer “handcuffs”
• Looking at prior short term bullpen usage

Closer Situations

• Closers likely to be traded & fantasy impact
• Relivers coming back from injury
• Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week
• Specific Team Situations
  • PHI
  • LAD
  • TB
  • COL
  • STL
  • MIN
  • SEA
  • MIA

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Podcast (beat-the-shift): Play in new window | Download

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• 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 May 30th.

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).

Starters

Starters only qualify to be placed in the table below if they have three appearances in the last 25 days and threw in at least the first inning in each of those appearances. The 25-day range should be wide enough to include three consecutive starts, but I may alter that time period in the future. Like in the above relievers table, I have isolated the table to starters who have displayed an average change of .60 or greater in either direction (increase vs. decrease). One final note, I do not remove pitchers who were recently injured. I think it’s advantageous to see how a pitcher’s velocity changed prior to injury. In today’s post, Julio Urías is a good example.

After rethinking what my Friday column looks like last week, I think I’ve settled on what this Tuesday column will cover for the foreseeable future. Instead of focusing on making recommendations for starters each week (which I’ll be doing anyway in my Friday SP Planner), I’ll cover under-rostered pitchers more broadly. I’ll switch off between covering starters and relievers each week with the goal of finding pitchers who are performing well and deserve a second look.

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.

The first thing I do when looking for under-rostered relievers is look at Leverage Index, first at the seasonal averages and then the change in Leverage Index over the last two weeks. Generally, teams know what they’re doing when deploying their relievers, and they’ll use their best pitchers in the most high leverage situations. When the bullpen hierarchy shifts, LI is pretty quick to pick up on those changes, though it’s obviously limited by the number of high leverage situations a team sees.

Here’s a list of relievers who have seen the highest positive change in Leverage Index over the last two weeks, who are also rostered in less than 60% of all Ottoneu leagues:

It’s tough to own any Rockies reliever, not only because they pitch half their games in Coors Field, but because the team sees fewer high leverage situations than a more competitive team would. Pierce Johnson is definitely seeing all the save situations in Colorado, though his peripherals aren’t anything special with both his walk rate and his HR/FB rate approaching 15%.

Zach Jackson was just placed on the IL with an elbow injury and there really isn’t anyone in Oakland’s bullpen that’s worth rostering because they’re seeing even fewer high leverage situations than the Rockies are.

The Rangers bullpen situation could be an interesting one to speculate on. Jonathan Hernández was holding the eighth inning role, setting up for Will Smith the closer, but he has allowed eight runs in his last three appearances. He’s probably pitched his way out of the high leverage calculus for now, opening an opportunity for the other two Texas relievers listed above. Josh Sborz had collected holds in three straight appearances before allowing five runs to score across his last two outings. He might have the best peripherals of the bunch, but his footing seems to be unstable after his last two meltdowns. Brock Burke doesn’t have the high strikeout rate you’d expect from a high leverage reliever, though it was 27.4% last year. He might be next in line for the eighth inning based on the struggles of the pitchers who were ahead of him on the depth chart.

There are a few interesting names in the Royals bullpen, though they suffer from the same problem as the A’s and the Rockies. Taylor Clarke seems to have the seventh inning role locked down ahead of Aroldis Chapman and Scott Barlow. He’s increased his strikeout rate by more than seven points behind a new emphasis on his breaking balls. Kansas City seems to have given up on using Carlos Hernández as a starter and have transitioned his extremely hard fastball to the bullpen where it’s already elite velocity and ride will only play up. He’s responded with a strikeout rate north of 30% and a couple of high leverage appearances. Of course, the Royals have used him as a short-stint opener in his last two outings so maybe they’re not ready to put him in a back-end role yet.

Here are 10 more relievers rostered in less than 60% of all Ottoneu leagues who have been performing well over the last few weeks and are seeing high leverage opportunities in their respective bullpens.

After making four starts at the beginning of the season, Nick Martinez has transitioned to the bullpen and has been thriving in a high leverage role for San Diego. His strikeout-minus-walk rate out of the pen is a fantastic 25.4% and he’s only being held back by the lack of hold opportunities for the scuffling Padres.

It looks like Miguel Castro is at least getting some consideration in a closer committee in Arizona. He earned two saves last week before getting inserted into the game in the seventh inning as the Phillies were threatening in a two-run game yesterday. He allowed an inherited runner to score but escaped the jam to earn a hold. He’s cut his walk rate by nearly three points while maintaining his strikeout rate this year.

The White Sox bullpen has been in flux all season long as they’ve tried to cover for the loss of Liam Hendriks. Joe Kelly might have emerged as the best option for Chicago; he’s struck out nearly 40% of the batters he’s faced this year. Hendriks is on the mend and working through his rehab assignment right now which means Kelly might settle in as a seventh or eighth inning option for the White Sox once their closer returns.

John Brebbia and Danny Coulombe are in weird positions in their respective bullpens. The former has been used as an opener a number of times this year, including yesterday ahead of Sean Manaea, but is seeing regular work in the seventh inning when he’s working out of the pen. His strikeout rate is 35.9% which is up among the league leaders and a huge improvement over what he was posting earlier in his career. Coulombe has also been striking out gaudy amounts of batters this year, but it’s been really hard to stand out in a very good Baltimore bullpen. His 28.2% strikeout-minus-walk rate sits behind only Yennier Cano and Félix Baustita in the Orioles ‘pen and it seems like it’s inevitable he’ll eventually start seeing more and more high-leverage opportunities if he continues to pitch this well.

I’m still in disbelief from a recent finding I made. It started with this comment in a recent article I wrote about STUFF:

How much WHIP changed in the two “Stuff” models was almost too good to be true. In both cases, the walk rate increased as a pitcher’s stuff got better, but the hit suppression was so large that the WHIP declined.

Well I was wrong about the hit suppression. I went back and found no link to BABIP. The difference was because WHIP is on an innings denominator and a strikeout removes the chance for a Hit and Walk. An out comes down to the random chance of a batted ball. I know it’s confusing so here is an example assuming a pitcher with a 9 K/9, 3 BB/9, and .300 BABIP and throws 6 IP/GS. Read the rest of this entry »