Reliever Rankings, Ignoring Saves and Holds

When playing typical fantasy baseball, the main thing that fantasy managers typically worry about regarding relievers is one thing: jobs.  If a reliever is a closer, he has value.  If not, they generally are considered to have very little value except in very deep leagues.

In FanGraphs Points leagues, however, a reliever’s job means a bit less, because saves (worth 5 points apiece) are worth only marginally more than a hold (4 points).  With that in mind, I think it’s interesting to take a look at reliever rankings without worrying about jobs.  In a sense, what we’re talking about are “true talent” projections for relievers, but still including things like park factors that do matter for fantasy comparisons.  If you have an estimate of a pitcher’s true talent, you may be able to find that cheap bargain pitcher who will outperform bad relievers with jobs.  And in all likelihood, the best pitchers would be expected to be among the first to take on the closer role once it becomes available.

So, here are reliever rankings, based on averaged, up to date, rest of season projections for ZiPS and THT’s Oliver.  Because I play in FanGraphs Points leagues (and similar lwts-style leagues), I’m going to rank the players based on FIP, since that is the core of that scoring system.  Here are the top-30:

#	Name	Team	zFIP	oFIP	avgFIP	Closer?
1	Kuo, Hong-Chih	LAN	2.72	2.80	2.76
2	Bell, Heath	SDN	2.81	3.00	2.91	YES
3	Thornton, Matt	CHA	3.04	2.94	2.99
4	Marmol, Carlos	CHN	2.96	3.07	3.02	YES
5	Wilson, Brian	SFN	2.93	3.11	3.02	YES
6	Soria, Joakim	KCA	2.89	3.23	3.06	YES
7	Adams, Mike	SDN	2.93	3.24	3.08
8	Broxton, Jonathan	LAN	3.05	3.14	3.09	YES
9	Rivera, Mariano	NYA	3.27	2.93	3.10	YES
10	Romo, Sergio	SFN	3.11	3.09	3.10
11	Hanrahan, Joel	PIT	3.07	3.21	3.14	YES
12	Papelbon, Jonathan	BOS	3.00	3.29	3.15	YES
13	Madson, Ryan	PHI	3.05	3.27	3.16	YES
14	Gregerson, Luke	SDN	3.09	3.39	3.24
15	Balfour, Grant	OAK	3.16	3.45	3.31
16	Marshall, Sean	CHN	3.20	3.44	3.32
17	Putz, J.J.	ARI	3.12	3.53	3.32	YES
18	Feliz, Neftali	TEX	3.23	3.45	3.34
19	Robertson, David	NYA	3.30	3.39	3.34
20	Betancourt, Rafael	COL	3.49	3.34	3.42
21	Soriano, Rafael	NYA	3.51	3.35	3.43
22	Jenks, Bobby	BOS	3.39	3.50	3.44
23	Street, Huston	COL	3.42	3.48	3.45	YES
24	Benoit, Joaquin	DET	3.33	3.62	3.48
25	Francisco, Frank	TOR	3.22	3.73	3.48
26	Rodriguez, Francisco	NYN	3.28	3.69	3.48	YES
27	Nathan, Joe	MIN	3.43	3.56	3.49
28	Qualls, Chad	SDN	3.45	3.59	3.52
29	Belisle, Matt	COL	3.67	3.39	3.53
30	Bray, Bill	CIN	3.53	3.57	3.55
31	Farnsworth, Kyle	TBA	3.50	3.61	3.56	YES

Of the top 31, 13 are currently closers.  And another 7 or 8 have been in that role in the recent past (including some who have already lost the job this year!).  Clearly, most teams do put their top (or one of their top) relievers into the role of closer.  That’s not surprising.  But even so, I think there are a lot of surprises on this list.  For example, how many would have guessed that Hong-Chih Kuo would have the best FIP projection…by a considerable margin, no less?  And while park factors do come into play, San Diego’s bullpen is just beyond stacked with top-tier talent.  Also, you can see why I was pretty confident in Joel Hanrahan when he was given the closer job this spring (and before he had a terrific April…although, what’s going on with his strikeout rate this year?).

I wouldn’t recommend using this as the only determination of how you draft relievers, even in leagues like ottoneu (I sort of tried that this year, and I’m getting killed).  The typical closer will still get more save opportunities than setup guys will get hold opportunities, for example, and saves still count for more.  But this is a good reference to use when going after non-closers, whether you are prospecting for saves or just going after reliable setup men.

What about the rankings of true closers?  Here are the current (and I mean current, so Neftali Feliz is replaced by Darren Oliver) closers for MLB teams:

#	Name	Team	zFIP	oFIP	avgFIP	Closer?
1	Bell, Heath	SDN	2.81	3.00	2.91	YES
2	Marmol, Carlos	CHN	2.96	3.07	3.02	YES
3	Wilson, Brian	SFN	2.93	3.11	3.02	YES
4	Soria, Joakim	KCA	2.89	3.23	3.06	YES
5	Broxton, Jonathan	LAN	3.05	3.14	3.09	YES
6	Rivera, Mariano	NYA	3.27	2.93	3.10	YES
7	Hanrahan, Joel	PIT	3.07	3.21	3.14	YES
8	Papelbon, Jonathan	BOS	3.00	3.29	3.15	YES
9	Madson, Ryan	PHI	3.05	3.27	3.16	YES
10	Putz, J.J.	ARI	3.12	3.53	3.32	YES
11	Street, Huston	COL	3.42	3.48	3.45	YES
12	Rodriguez, Francisco	NYN	3.28	3.69	3.48	YES
13	Farnsworth, Kyle	TBA	3.50	3.61	3.56	YES
14	Oliver, Darren	TEX	3.69	3.50	3.59	YES
15	Fuentes, Brian	OAK	3.38	3.90	3.64	YES
16	League, Brandon	SEA	3.61	3.71	3.66	YES
17	Valverde, Jose	DET	3.65	3.73	3.69	YES
18	Perez, Chris	CLE	3.63	3.89	3.76	YES
19	Santos, Sergio	CHA	3.43	4.10	3.77	YES
20	Lyon, Brandon	HOU	3.86	3.83	3.85	YES
21	Axford, John	MIL	3.64	4.11	3.87	YES
22	Kimbrel, Craig	ATL	3.62	4.14	3.88	YES
23	Capps, Matt	MIN	3.86	3.91	3.88	YES
24	Nunez, Leo	FLO	3.68	4.12	3.90	YES
25	Storen, Drew	WAS	3.50	4.31	3.90	YES
26	Cordero, Francisco	CIN	4.04	3.86	3.95	YES
27	Rauch, Jon	TOR	4.03	3.94	3.98	YES
28	Gregg, Kevin	BAL	4.11	4.24	4.18	YES
29	Boggs, Mitchell	STL	3.94	4.51	4.22	YES
30	Walden, Jordan	ANA	4.16	4.55	4.36	YES

Not surprisingly, the bottom of the barrel is where you get the most movement and the least amount of job security.  Mitchell Boggs has been getting a lot of press as he assumed the job this year, for example, but I wonder whether he’ll keep it for the rest of the year given his weak projection.  Oliver and ZiPS do think he was a small upgrade over Ryan Franklin (4.36 projected FIP), though Jason Motte may be the best pitcher of the group (3.62 projected FIP).  Also, while the typically awesome Matt Thornton arguably should have gotten a longer audition for the job, Sergio Santos doesn’t look like a half-bad choice for the White Sox gig; he’s right there with Chris Perez in the rankings.