Reliever Strategy Musings

I really like using relievers in fantasy baseball, especially the elite kind. I might harp a bit on this subject. It’s hard to purchase more than one Craig Kimbrel or Aroldis Chapman because they often cost over $20. While I shouldn’t pay $100 to roster the top five closers, it’s usually justifiable to spend more than the minimum on your bullpen.

I often see commenters who support a pure LIRA approach (Low Investment Relief Ace). They cite reliever volatility. Supposedly*, this article proves the existence of reliever volatility. According to the argument, if reliever performance is more volatile than other positions, then I should minimize my investment in them.

*My Insider subscription has crapped out. If anyone has some free to read math, link it in the comments.

Volatility can work in two directions, except I think it’s safe to posit that a guy like Kimbrel doesn’t really have any room to improve. So volatility is all about downside with the very best relievers. A guy like Sean Doolittle or Francisco Rodriguez would make a better poster child for positive volatility.

Succeeding with a LIRA approach comes down to selecting a Wade Davis or Dellin Betances before your rivals wise up. To do so requires a leap of faith to believe an excellent five or 10 inning sample is indicative of a breakout. Even with visual scouting, there are too many ways to boff the analysis. The sample is just too small. In other words, going cheap on relievers is risky business.

The impetus for this post is a comment by Lucky Strikes in last week’s Fantasy Puzzle. I’ve linked to the comment itself since it’s a bit long to quote. Sir Strikes does some math to show that a $10 keeper Greg Holland is probably a better investment than a $1 lottery ticket reliever and $9 more on a hitter. We were talking specifically about an ottoneu points format, but the reasoning stands for other leagues too, just with slightly messier math.

I’m not too concerned about the math. We can discuss numbers in the comments, but I’m more concerned with the fatal flaw in the LIRA approach: identifying the right relief aces.  It’s easy to say that a fantasy owner could have just bought Betances, Davis, Doolittle, and Rodriguez for $4 or even picked them up off waivers. Most of the time though, you’ll mistakenly discard a Betances because his walk rate was kind of high (that’s why I let him go in April: 4.73 BB/9).

For this thought exercise, I resurrected my preseason target list for cheap relievers. Included on the list were Joaquin Benoit, Cody Allen, and Jake McGee. Also included were Will Smith, Blake Parker, Nate Jones, Luke Hochevar, and Sergio Santos. I acquired more players from that second group in my drafts. In many cases, I successfully divested to Doolittle, Jenrry Mejia, Brad Boxberger, Andrew Miller, or another good reliever. En route to settling on those names, I handled shares of Nick Vincent, Brett Cecil, Casey Fien, and Aaron Barrett. Those four had solid seasons, just not when I owned them.

Meanwhile, my preseason top five for relievers contained Kimbrel, Chapman, Kenley Jansen, Trevor Rosenthal, and Greg Holland. I learned a lesson with Rosenthal, but the others were established elites and continued to pitch as such. Someday they’ll fade from their pedestal due to decline or injury, but for now they’re the most reliable relievers in fantasyland. A selection of Kimbrel is costly, but it’s a roster spot that doesn’t need to cycle from Santos to Smith to Cecil to Barrett before finally arriving on Miller in late June. That composite pitcher is roughly league average even though the longest tenured name was fantastic.

Jeff Sullivan recently wrote about how the Orioles managed their downside to arrive in the postseason. Fantasy owners also need to concern themselves with downside. A Kimbrel could end up a wasted $20 if his elbow pops (as could any pitcher), but if we assume health, his floor is very high. Your job as an owner is to maximize upside AND floor. Regardless of volatility, elite relievers can help in that task.

None of this is to say that you should spend on top relievers or shouldn’t commit to low cost hurlers. Each strategy has merits as does the combination approach that most owners take. I do think it’s important to recognize that a LIRA approach carries more risk and volatility than paying for a couple premium closers. Not only do you have to find useful cheap relievers, you also have to spend the remaining money wisely. Maybe you took the dollars saved on relievers and upgraded from Hunter Pence to Carlos Gonzalez (whoops).

Even if we ignore extreme examples, we still have to overcome the value lost by downgrading in the bullpen. Of course, if you give to the bullpen, you must take away from somewhere else. It’s all about finding that perfect work/life balance. There are a lot of moving parts in building a fantasy roster. I recommend that you don’t commit to only one strategy.