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The 2021 version of Bullpen Report includes five different sections, as well as the closer chart, which can be found at the bottom of the page.

1. Notable Workloads: Primary closers or valuable members of a closer committee who have been deemed unavailable or likely unavailable for the current day due to recent workload.
2. Injury News 
3. Outlier Saves: Explanation for a non-closer earning a save during the previous day.
4. Committee Clarity: Notes on a closer committee that clarify a pitcher’s standing in the group.
5. Losing A Grip: Struggling closers who could be on the hot seat.

The “RosterResource” link will take you to the corresponding team’s RosterResource depth chart, which will give you a better picture of the full bullpen and results of the previous six days (pitch count, save, hold, win, loss, blown save.)
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You may remember, in the before times, a game called Beat the Streak. The game challenged baseball fans to hypothetically beat one of the greatest records of all time. The idea was to pick one player each day to get a hit and to do that 57 consecutive times, beating Joe DiMaggio’s 56 game hit streak record. Way back in preseason 2020 I wrote about my ambitions of becoming a millionaire by using predictive, machine learning models to aid in winning the competition. The game’s 2020 cancellation gave me time to think, time to read, time to learn how noisy my upstairs neighbors are, and time to build a better model.

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Having covered SP and the rest of the offensive positions, we are finishing up with OF ranks (I won’t be doing RP ranks, but keep an eye out for more on that). Outfield is the most strategically interesting position in Ottoneu, as there are so many options for how you approach the five OF spots. Go get two or even three big bats and stay cheap on the rest? Get five $10-$15 guys plus some depth? Load up on platoon bats? All viable options, and there are more.

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With auction season upon us, it’s time to start looking closer at positional rankings and auction targets. Throughout February, I’ll be sharing my positional rankings for Ottoneu, focused on points leagues. We’re starting today with catchers, but first a few notes on my methodology and what to expect.

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Saves+Holds leagues seem to be on the up and up because of the volatility of the saves category. We all are aware of the shift in team philosophies when it comes to the ninth inning. Many use committees, some use specific pitchers in high leverage situations (could be the 7th, 8th, or 9th inning), and few use one pitcher. This is where Saves+Holds leagues come into play, eliminates the headache of chasing the ever-elusive saves category. Here are the 2020 Saves+Holds leaders.

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Acquiring saves in fantasy baseball is becoming more and more of a headache. The Tampa Bay Rays had 12 different pitchers notch a save in 2020. Imagine if it was a season of normal length? With the league trending towards using their best pitchers in high leverage positions instead of the conventional only ninth inning role, it seems like grabbing saves are only going to get more complicated. Below you will see four closers that likely won’t be too popular but could help you in the long run. A quick side note, there are a lot of free-agent relief pitchers (ie. Brad Hand) so things can definitely change.

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American League

Astros

• Josh James is going to be out for six to eight months recovering from hip surgery.

The recovery time for that procedure is approximately 6-8 months, the club announced on Saturday. A sixth-month recovery would take James into late April, while an eight-month recovery would stretch into late June. That’s another blow to an Astros pitching staff that already lost ace Justin Verlander for the entire 2021 season after he recently underwent Tommy John surgery.

I don’t see any reason to roster him in any league that drafts before there is a positive update on his status.

Athletics

• Khris Davis is likely limited to the short side of a DH platoon.

After four seasons as the team’s everyday DH, Khris Davis faced mainly left-handed pitchers in 2020, which limited his playing time to 30 games. He split the DH role with Canha, who played 21 games in that spot.

He’s worthless in fantasy right now.
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The Kansas City Royals decided to use the shortened season to their advantage when it came to their young pitchers. Lynn Worthy wrote an interesting piece for KansasCity.com gathering quotes from their pitching coach Cal Eldred. Directly from the article: “We got to take all of our pitchers in the organization, those on the 40-man roster and shift them back into player development,” Eldred said. “They had an opportunity when their arms were as healthy and felt as good and strong as they possibly could be to work on some of those things without the strain of, ‘You’ve just got to make it to the next start,’ or, ‘You’ve just gotta make it to the next outing and get outs.’ You can’t do that in a bullpen in between.”

The Royals already had a young and budding starter in Brad Keller but in 2020 they decided to call up both Brady Singer and Kris Bubic as well. Both of which hadn’t seen competition over AA ball. Both were bold moves and came with speculation but like Eldred said they had time to focus on development and these young Royals pitchers really improved as the season went on.

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Coming into the 2020 season when anyone would mention the Cleveland Indians rotation you would have automatically thought of Mike Clevinger, Shane Bieber, Carlos Carrasco, and maybe even Aaron Civale. No one thought anything of Zach Plesac. Yet here we are two and a half months later and Zach Plesac had an ADP of pick 79 in the “2 early mocks.” Plesac balled out in this shortened season pitching 55.1 innings with a 2.28 ERA and 24.8% K-BB%.

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This season, this short, crazy, and insane season has seen a lot of rookie pitchers. With all of these call ups this has been one of the more compelling MLB seasons we have seen in a long time. It seems like every week new pitchers are being called up to grab a spot start. Pitchers who haven’t even reached the AAA level are getting called up! This is the second and final part of analyzing some of these rookie pitchers, how they are performing, and what their future holds.

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