It’s a good thing readers aren’t able to leave comments on the Fangraphs+ blurbs because I botched the blurb I wrote on Washington’s closer, Rafael Soriano. In that blurb I stated that Soriano is “a lock to be drafted as a top five closer.” As it turns out, not so much. Soriano is currently going 13th among closers in NFBC drafts. I either underestimated the ability of drafters to see some of the red flags, or I forgot that ADP is heavily influenced by the order in which players are listed in draft rooms and that the people doing the listing would see his red flags.

What are those red flags? In reality, all the peripheral numbers that declined last year for Soriano are all tied to his ability to miss bats. His velocity was down which helped hitters make more contact on pitches in the zone than ever before which led to his swing strike rate dropping which obviously led to fewer strikeouts. To be exact, his strikeout rate fell 6.3%. If you’re looking for a positive sign, his fastball velocity got back close to his normal speed after April and May.

Read the rest of this entry »

Over at our depth charts, we have 13 different relievers listed for the Mets. 13! And that doesn’t even include Kyle Farnsworth, but it does include Jose Valverde and Erik Goeddel and Steven Matz and Jeff Walters, and it’s okay if you want to admit now that you’ve never heard of two of those names. It’s not pretty, but for a Mets team that probably isn’t going to be contending for anything seriously in 2014, it makes sense. Throwing money at relievers at this point in the team’s development is often money wasted, and so Sandy Alderson and friends will instead try to go with what they’ve got.

But from a fantasy perspective, that makes it difficult. It’s hard to know for sure who is even going to be in this bullpen, much less contributing — I imagine it’ll be something of a revolving door all season long — and that limits fantasy utility. Still, someone has to get saves, and we can start with the likely closer and go from there.

Read the rest of this entry »

Having the flu is a nightmare. The sweats, the all-night restlessness, the purging of all sorts of disgustingness from the body, it’s awful. Some like to huddle up under the covers all day for comfort. Some like to sip on some warm chicken soup. You know what makes me feel better? That’s right — the Kansas City Royals bullpen. Last season’s darlings in powder blue collectively posted a 7.3 WAR (second in the majors), a 9.57 K/9 (first), and a collective 2.55 ERA (second) over 461.2 innings. It was a thing of beauty, and best of all, they’re all returning again this season. Read the rest of this entry »

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.
Read the rest of this entry »

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.
Read the rest of this entry »

If there’s one thing you want to say about Seattle’s bullpen it’s… well, it’s pretty cheap. Like getting paid “what fell out of Robinson Cano’s coin purse” cheap. But while it’s cheap, it’s filled with guys who throw hard. Guys who throw hard tend to get whiffs. Guys who get whiffs have a chance to be valuable. And if you’re concerned with middle relievers in your fantasy leagues, guys who get whiffs are exactly who you should be targeting as upside plays.

The closer
Danny Farquhar

Farquhar burst onto the scene in 2013, notching 16 saves in the stead of a certain former bartender-turned-closer who shall remain nameless (but appears below). Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

In the tumultuous world of relief pitching, where closers seem to come and go day and night, the San Diego Padres have stood as a model of consistency. For 16 years, Trevor Hoffman closed the door on opponents to the tune of Hells Bells, before giving way to Heath Bell’s three-season reign, until current closer Huston Street took over the ninth inning duties in 2012.

Street will enter 2014 entrenched as the team’s ninth inning man again, but whether or not he remains in that position all year may be less of a sure thing than it seems. Let’s dive in.

Read the rest of this entry »

One pitcher subset I like to exploit is relief pitchers (RP) with starting pitcher (SP) qualifications. In leagues with each SP and RP slots and daily lineup changes, these pitchers can be extremely useful. Starters can only throw every five days and then can’t accumulate any stats the rest of the time. On their off days, a SP qualified RP can be moved into the SP spot to help with rate stats and in a few rare cases, accumulate Saves. These pitchers got abused in Ottoneu to the point the rules got changed. Not all leagues ban them yet. Today, I am going to look at some of the better pitchers who may fill this requirement.

Read the rest of this entry »