RotoGraphs Consensus Rankings: Relievers

by
March 8, 2013

Relievers! Are they the kickers of fantasy baseball? It might be even worse: kickers at least give you straight points. There is no ‘field goal’ category. There is a ‘saves’ category, however, and only relievers can get you anywhere in that category. So hold your nose and jump in.

I’m a big fan of picking at the end of tiers — and your bullpen reporters will get you tiered rankings soon, and then give you daily updates about bullpens around the league — so there are some names that jump out at me. Joe Nathan looks like the last guy we all agree belongs in the top tier. Then somewhere around Rafael Soriano and Tom Wilhelmsen there seems to be a second tier. Then I’d usually take a break and take two fliers. Let’s say two of Ryan Madson, Steve Cishek and Bobby Parnell. Then again, my “closers” in AL-LABR were Jose Veras, Joaquin Benoit, and Andrew Bailey.

I don’t like to pay much for saves, in other words.

If you end up in similar position, maybe you’ll like Luke Gregerson, Kyuji Fujikawa, Jake McGee and David Hernandez. Since over a third of closers lose their job to injury or poor play every year, it’s a virtual guarantee one of these guys will accrue saves. Good luck hunting.

(The projections are from Steamer, and are not the sole basis for each analyst’s rankings.)

RotoG ES JZ MP ZS Name IP GS SO W ERA WHIP SV
1 1 1 1 1 Craig Kimbrel 54 83 4 1.89 1.04 35
2 4 2 2 2 Jonathan Papelbon 55 63 4 2.66 1.12 35
3 2 4 3 3 Jason Motte 53 57 4 2.79 1.17 33
4 3 9 4 7 Joe Nathan 46 47 3 3.16 1.23 33
5 10 5 7 8 Sergio Romo 47 48 3 2.81 1.15 31
6 15 3 8 13 John Axford 56 63 4 3.08 1.26 32
7 11 11 9 10 Glen Perkins 56 56 4 3.01 1.2 30
8 6 17 6 16 J.J. Putz 43 44 3 3.02 1.2 31
9 16 14 10 5 Fernando Rodney 55 53 3 3.33 1.31 33
10 8 13 5 20 Greg Holland 48 54 3 3.12 1.29 31
11 5 25 13 4 Rafael Soriano 50 49 3 3.28 1.26 33
12 9 12 22 6 Tom Wilhelmsen 56 53 3 3.4 1.3 35
13 12 8 19 17 Rafael Betancourt 47 45 3 3.36 1.23 35
14 23 7 14 18 Jason Grilli 51 59 3 2.9 1.22 31
15 28 6 20 9 Kenley Jansen 42 58 3 2.4 1.14 17
16 7 31 12 14 Mariano Rivera 38 33 2 3.54 1.29 35
17 18 18 18 11 Grant Balfour 56 52 3 3.55 1.32 23
18 14 24 15 23 Huston Street 40 40 3 2.96 1.2 35
19 17 23 11 27 Addison Reed 45 44 3 3.51 1.28 32
20 13 21 16 31 Joel Hanrahan 49 49 3 3.47 1.33 32
21 19 40 21 12 Jim Johnson 55 37 3 3.56 1.32 33
22 20 33 27 15 Chris Perez 45 40 3 3.73 1.34 31
23 24 26 24 32 Jonathan Broxton 47 41 3 3.53 1.32 33
24 33 16 31 26 Ernesto Frieri 50 60 3 3.25 1.29 16
25 22 41 23 22 Steve Cishek 48 44 3 3.5 1.35 27
26 32 19 34 25 Vinnie Pestano 57 59 4 3.26 1.27 2
27 30 45 17 21 Casey Janssen 43 40 3 3.19 1.22 22
28 26 27 26 43 Carlos Marmol 45 54 3 3.56 1.4 25
29 27 52 28 24 Ryan Madson 36 31 2 3.51 1.29 29
30 44 32 25 35 Sean Marshall 53 54 4 2.87 1.19
31 47 36 37 19 Trevor Rosenthal 70 3 63 4 3.71 1.34 1
32 37 39 35 30 Ryan Cook 64 1 61 4 3.51 1.32 5
33 25 46 32 44 Bobby Parnell 54 50 4 3.2 1.28 8
34 35 22 65 38 David Hernandez 57 66 4 3.01 1.23
35 36 29 65 33 Joaquin Benoit 53 55 3 3.15 1.23 2
36 39 15 65 45 David Robertson 51 59 3 2.96 1.23 4
37 31 48 38 48 Jose Veras 54 52 3 3.77 1.38 16
38 43 34 65 29 Luke Gregerson 60 52 4 3.27 1.26
39 34 38 39 62 Kyuji Fujikawa
40 65 10 65 39 Tyler Clippard 63 69 4 3.18 1.25
41 21 78 29 57 Brandon League 56 46 4 3.33 1.32 11
42 48 42 65 37 Drew Storen 50 46 3 3.28 1.26 10
43 57 49 33 54 Jonny Venters 55 58 4 2.91 1.29
44 38 72 36 55 Frank Francisco 37 35 2 3.47 1.31 15
45 65 37 65 34 Drew Smyly 72 12 62 5 4.01 1.32
46 45 44 30 84 Rex Brothers 50 59 3 3.35 1.34 3
47 46 65 40 52 Bruce Rondon 32 18 1 5.34 1.69 22
48 42 59 65 42 Jake McGee 39 45 3 2.77 1.17
49 65 30 65 49 Joel Peralta 57 58 4 3.31 1.24
50 40 65 42 65 Brandon Lyon 39 33 2 3.75 1.35
51 51 47 65 50 Kelvin Herrera 57 52 4 3.21 1.27
52 49 62 65 41 Santiago Casilla 59 50 4 3.54 1.34 3
53 41 60 65 53 Al Alburquerque 46 51 3 3.34 1.33 3
54 29 76 41 76 Sergio Santos 35 37 2 3.37 1.31 7
55 65 35 65 60 Darren O’Day 60 51 4 3.69 1.28
56 54 50 65 65 Sean Doolittle 42 47 3 2.88 1.2
57 65 55 65 59 Mike Adams 50 44 3 3.44 1.27 1
58 50 67 65 77 Carter Capps 47 52 3 3.1 1.26
59 53 137 65 64 J.J. Hoover 30 1 31 2 3.55 1.31

Other relievers ranked by one analyst in their top 75: Brian Wilson, Nate Jones, Kyle McPherson, Brad Boxberger, Pedro Strop, Stephen Pryor, Mark Melancon, Jim Henderson, Bryan Morris, Tim Collins, Brian Matusz, Matt Belisle, Koji Uehara, Aaron Crow, Jake Arrieta, Eric O’Flaherty, Jeremy Affeldt, Ronald Belisario, Jared Burton, Francisco Rodriguez, Sam LeCure, Craig Stammen, Charlie Furbush, Tom Gorzelanny, George Kontos, Matt Thornton, Adam Ottavino, Brad Brach, James Russell, Octavio Dotel, Jose Valverde, Antonio Bastardo, Jordan Walden, Jesse Crain, Mitchell Boggs, Jose Arredondo, Joe Smith, Andrew Bailey, Anthony Bass, Brad Ziegler, and Joba Chamberlain.

You Aren't a FanGraphs Member
It looks like you aren't yet a FanGraphs Member (or aren't logged in). We aren't mad, just disappointed.
We get it. You want to read this article. But before we let you get back to it, we'd like to point out a few of the good reasons why you should become a Member.
1. Ad Free viewing! We won't bug you with this ad, or any other.
2. Unlimited articles! Non-Members only get to read 10 free articles a month. Members never get cut off.
3. Dark mode and Classic mode!
4. Custom player page dashboards! Choose the player cards you want, in the order you want them.
5. One-click data exports! Export our projections and leaderboards for your personal projects.
6. Remove the photos on the home page! (Honestly, this doesn't sound so great to us, but some people wanted it, and we like to give our Members what they want.)
7. Even more Steamer projections! We have handedness, percentile, and context neutral projections available for Members only.
8. Get FanGraphs Walk-Off, a customized year end review! Find out exactly how you used FanGraphs this year, and how that compares to other Members. Don't be a victim of FOMO.
9. A weekly mailbag column, exclusively for Members.
10. Help support FanGraphs and our entire staff! Our Members provide us with critical resources to improve the site and deliver new features!
We hope you'll consider a Membership today, for yourself or as a gift! And we realize this has been an awfully long sales pitch, so we've also removed all the other ads in this article. We didn't want to overdo it.




 

With a phone full of pictures of pitchers' fingers, strange beers, and his two toddler sons, Eno Sarris can be found at the ballpark or a brewery most days. Read him here, writing about the A's or Giants at The Athletic, or about beer at October. Follow him on Twitter @enosarris if you can handle the sandwiches and inanity.

18 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Phil
13 years ago

I’m curious why JZ is so down on Soriano and Jim Johnson (talk about a roller coaster ranking)….

2
Jeff ZimmermanFanGraphs Staff
13 years ago
Reply to  Phil

Eno asked me the same question before he released them.

My pitching projections are based almost entirely off of K’s, BB and Save chances.

For Johnson, his lack of strikeouts brought him down

For Soriano, his value came out lumped in with 12 other closers and he got the short straw. He easily could be moved up into the low teams.

As Eno stated, relievers and starters should be grouped in tiers, which is what I do. At this point, a person is splitting c…..at hairs to see who is better than who.

0
TheOneWhoKnocks
13 years ago

given how volatile the position is, I could see about 6 of the top 10 guys losing their closer gigs this year. (Romo, Axford, Perkins, Putz, Wilhelmsen, Betancourt could all easily be challenged for their roles, and most of them were last year)
Those guys are quality relievers, but closers change constantly. Based on that I’d put Mariano significantly higher myself. Kimbrel, Papelbon, Nathan and Mo are the only guys who have strangleholds on saves.

0
Cliff
13 years ago
Reply to  TheOneWhoKnocks

i wouldnt say that Putz, Wilhelmsen, or Betancourt was really challenged for their roles last year. and Axford is really the only one that had any kind of serious struggles.

i guess i kind of disagree with you. i think Perkins, Putz, Wilhelmsen, Axford, and Betancourt are pretty much as secure in their roles as closers can be…maybe not Axford, but with KRod gone, I dont see Jim Henderson as the answer. i think only a trade would really threaten their role…or injury obviously…then again, they likely wouldnt be traded to a team with an elite closer already either.

Romo is going to be in a closer by committee IMO. Bochy has already pretty much said as much. To have Romo ranked 5th and Jim Johnson ranked 40th is more than a joke if you ask me. Talking about a guy who had 51 saves last year, only 3 blown saves, a 2.49 ERA, and 1.04 WHIP. hes a ground ball machine which is perfect for the AL East which is full of teams that swing for the fences.

0
Eno SarrisMember since 2020
13 years ago
Reply to  Cliff

Betancourt could be traded. Bad team. Wilhelmsen could be traded cause Capps and Pryor are so good. Putz has the injury thing.

Jim Johnson’s rankings will always be tanked by his strikeouts. You can’t project him for another 50 saves because you can’t project the Orioles to do the same thing again. I see him as highly variable and useful but not elite.

0
Dave
13 years ago
Reply to  Cliff

Michael Olmsted will take over as closer for Axford when he struggles this year. Book it.

0
Nelson S.
13 years ago

Steamer FAIL on Rondon: 32 Games, 22 Saves, 18 Ks. Somethings not right there.

0
Jared CrossMember since 2016
13 years ago
Reply to  Nelson S.

Fair enough. Right now we only have fastball velocities for guys with pitchf/x data but pretty soon we’ll be adding fastball velocities (based on scouting reports) for a number of minor league players, including Rondon, at which point you’ll see that number tick up a bit.

0
Nelson S.
13 years ago
Reply to  Jared Cross

Im curious how Steamer projects Wins and Saves for relievers

1
Jared CrossMember since 2016
13 years ago
Reply to  Jared Cross

Wins are based on pitching goodness (ERA, that is) and opportunities and Saves are just from the Fans projected roles (Closer/Closer by Committee).

0
grassyjones
13 years ago
Reply to  Jared Cross

What’s with the projection on M.Rivera?
His career WHIP is 1.00, over 1,000 games and 1,200 IP,
He hasn’t ever had a WHIP over 1.19 since his rookie year nearly 20 years ago.
His ERA and peripherals are also similarly sterling throughout his career.
That projection seems way off (3.54 / 1.29), as does ranking him #31.
What does STEAMER know, that it would predict such a drop off in performance?

0
ACC
13 years ago

Where is Mike Pod rank 3 and 4 relievers??

0
juan pierres mustache
13 years ago
Reply to  ACC

weird! also, he appears to have stopped ranking at 64 (unless he truly believes that 30 or so guys tie for 65th) whereas other rankers went farther…i feel like that might be throwing off the ranks slightly (though mostly just for later guys, so not really a huge deal). Was anyone who didn’t get ranked given 65? it looks like JZ, for example, has several guys at 65 but also some guys ranked as low as 137.

0
Eno SarrisMember since 2020
13 years ago
Reply to  juan pierres mustache

I cut it off at 65. You can get lost down a wormhole with these rankings. Just look at all the decent relievers that got one rank. As for Mikes’ 3/4, we’ll go looking. I suppose they were starters, which we took out of the rankings this week.

0
Zac
13 years ago
Reply to  juan pierres mustache

Two of the three of Chapman, Medlen, and Sale, in other words?

0
Mike PodhorzerFanGraphs Staff
13 years ago
Reply to  juan pierres mustache

Getting updated shortly. We went back and forth with the “should we include SPs with RP eligibility?” question, and my latest rankings included a bunch of them.

0
Tvators
13 years ago

I gave up saying mean things on rotograph rankings so this is a lovely spreadsheet, very well organzied and easy to read

0
exxroxMember since 2026
13 years ago

Chapman pretty much has to be added back in here. Is he #2 behind Kimbrel due to volatility?

0