Four Rosterable Non-Closing Relievers – Lorenzen, Rosenthal, Capps and Rivero

Non-closing relievers typically don’t get much fanfare outside of leagues that use holds or holds combined with saves. Occasionally handcuffs to shaky closers will get a slight uptick in ownership in anticipation of said shaky closer faltering and losing the gig, but otherwise, non-closing relievers are deemed a waste of a roster spot outside of extremely deep leagues. The following quartet of relievers stand out to me as being worthy of ownership in 12-team mixed leagues or larger that don’t feature shallow benches. Chris Devenski’s relief excellence has bumped his ownership up significantly, so he’s not included. However, another multi-inning reliever is off to his own strong start and owned in under 10% of CBS, ESPN and Yahoo! leagues. A couple former closers and a lefty relief ace join him in this week’s piece.

Michael Lorenzen (CIN – RP): CBS – 8%, ESPN – 7.5%, Yahoo! – 8%
Lorenzen has made four appearances for the Reds thus far this year, and his most recent was three perfect innings in which he struck out three Pirates in relief of Brandon Finnegan. Manager Bryan Price has been open about going away from traditional bullpen usage, and Raisel Iglesias has two multi-inning saves in four appearances. Price’s willingness to use his best relievers for more than one inning could result in Lorenzen piling up more innings than the typical reliever. More innings means a greater impact on ratios and more strikeouts. Of course, a greater impact on ratios is only good if the reliever posts solid ratios. Last year, Lorenzen was responsible for a 2.88 ERA and 1.08 WHIP. The ERA was mostly supported by his 3.67 FIP, 3.10 xFIP and 2.75 SIERA as well as a 6.4% BB% and 23.8% K%. The young right-hander coaxed worm burners at an impressive 62.7% rate, and that will help him navigate the homer-friendly nature of Great American ̶S̶m̶a̶l̶l̶ ̶P̶a̶r̶k̶ Ball Park. The 25-year-old pitcher has gotten off to a brilliant start without allowing a run, cutting his walk rate down to 4.8% while bumping his strikeout rate up to 33.3% and groundball rate up to 76.9%. The gains in strikeout rate in the admittedly tiny sample thus far this year is supported by a silly 21.2% SwStr% and a healthy 5.3% jump in O-Swing% from 30.9% to 36.2%. Lorenzen has gotten ahead of less than half of the batters he’s faced on pitch one of their at-bats (47.6% F-Strike%), so that warrants monitoring, but otherwise, he looks like a major bullpen asset for the Reds who can help fantasy gamers, too.

Trevor Rosenthal (STL – RP): CBS – 13%, ESPN – 6.3%, Yahoo! – 26%
Rosenthal is more of your traditional save speculation play/strong setup guy than a multi-inning workhorse reliever like Lorenzen could be, for now at least. The Cardinals’ righty was stretched out in the spring while he competed for a rotation spot, but he suffered a lat injury that resulted in him opening the year on the disabled list. There was some off-season speculation that Rosenthal could be used in a multi-inning role out of the bullpen — and that could still happen — but for now, keeping him healthy is the main concern, and that means probably being a “one-inning reliever” for the time being. The 26-year-old has made two appearances since his activation from the disabled list. His first was a perfect inning in which he struck out the side against the Nationals. His second was messier and started with a strikeout before he was chased after giving up one run on three straight singles. Seven batters is an itty bitty sample, but he’s yet to walk a batter and is firing premium velocity bullets.

As you’re likely aware at this point, velocity is being recorded differently this year (you can read more about that in Andrew Perpetua’s piece from yesterday). Instead of looking at Rosenthal’s velocity relative to his previous work, I decided to check out where he stands relative to all other pitchers who’ve thrown a pitch this year. And would you look at that, his average fourseam fastball velocity of 98.5 mph this year is second only to Aroldis Chapman’s mark of 99.8 mph. Last year, Rosenthal threw hard, too, but it didn’t matter much because he was walking the world (14.7% BB%) and couldn’t convince hitters to fish out of the zone (23.9% O-Swing%). Prior to last season, Rosenthal owned a 2.66 ERA (2.49 FIP, 3.07 xFIP and 2.68 SIERA), 1.22 WHIP, 9.5% BB% and 30.5% K% with 96 saves in 237 innings of relief work stretched across 233 appearances. His pre-2016 work — even without the saves — would be roster worthy. I think it’s worth adding him to see if last year proves to be a hiccup as opposed to the new norm for him. As an added bonus, closer Seung Hwan Oh has allowed at least one run in three of his four appearances, and he’s also failed to strike out a batter in his last three appearances spanning three innings and 15 batters faced. Oh was lights out last year, and I was a big fan of his entering the year, but if he continues to struggle, the plug will be pulled on him closing games. I think he has some leash, but a couple more messy appearances could open the door to the guy who started last year as the Red Birds’ closer, Rosenthal.

Carter Capps (SD – RP): CBS – 41%, ESPN – 7.4%, Yahoo! – 12%
Capps made a one-inning rehab appearance starting at the High-A level and walked a batter, struck out another and allowed zero runs. It’s unclear when he’ll be activated from the DL, but it’s likely not too far from now. CBS gamers are all over him already, but ESPN and Yahoo! gamers are snoozing. It’s not a secret how brilliantly he pitched prior to Tommy John surgery, so I won’t bore you with diving into those numbers. You also don’t need me to warn you of the fact it’s possible he won’t return to pre-TJ form this year or ever. Consider Capps’ inclusion here as a heads up that he’s widely available at two of the three major sites for fantasy baseball and an endorsement for stashing him in a DL spot or on a deep bench in 12-team mixers or larger leagues.

Felipe Rivero (PIT – RP): CBS – 9%, ESPN – 3.5%, Yahoo! – 6%
Rivero isn’t an immediate threat to closer Tony Watson, and he’s probably not even the next in line. Off-season signing Daniel Hudson is probably next in the pecking order, although he has allowed an earned run in three straight appearances. Anyway, it looks like Rivero’s blossoming into a bullpen monster who can really help the ratios while also picking up plenty of strikeouts. The southpaw brings elite velocity to the table and swing-and-miss stuff that resulted in a 14.5% SwStr% last season. He rode his bat-missing stuff to a juicy 28.1% K%, but he was somewhat erratic and walked 10.1% of the batters he faced. His below average control partially contributed to an unhelpful 1.29 WHIP, but it looks like he might be making serious improvements to avoiding free passes. Rivero has pitched six walk-free innings in seven appearances. He hadn’t tallied a Zone% north of 50% in his first two years in the bigs, but he’s sitting at a 55.2% Zone% at this moment. While I place almost no value in spring training numbers, Rivero issued only one walk in 10 innings. Adding his spring work to his regular season work results in 16 innings of one-walk baseball. If I had to rank the four featured relievers from most desirable to least desirable it would be Capps, Lorenzen, Rosenthal and Rivero. In non-traditional scoring formats that use holds in addition to saves or saves plus holds, I’d bump Rivero to the top of the list followed by Capps, Lorenzen and Rosenthal.