Archive for mitchell boggs

The 2013 version of the Cardinals bullpen seems to be littered with depth, specialists and flashes some upside that should make for an interesting year, both in real and fake baseball.

The Closer:

Jason Motte

Motte finished 2012 42-of-49 in save chances with a 2.75 ERA (3.12 FIP) and a 5.02 K/BB. His 42 saves and 5.02 K/BB were each career bests with a minimum of 20 innings pitched, and good enough for a third and twelfth place finish among qualified relievers respectively last year. The key to the righty’s recent success could be associated with the increased use of the cutter over the past three seasons. The flamethrower’s velocity and ability to induce swinging strikes have increased and his xFIP has decreased in each of those seasons. The Cardinals’ closer continues to get better and maybe the best is yet to come. He’s ascended into the top of the second tier of relievers and should be one of the top three from that position selected in your draft. He will continue to provide impressive ratios, whiff batters and tally the saves your team desperately needs — if you’re willing to pay the price.

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Like vultures picking every last piece of meat off a carcass in the hot desert sun, it’s time for us to take another look at the waiver wire and see what remaining pieces of fantasy value lie in the pool of unwanted free agents… Read the rest of this entry »

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.

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