Archive for relief pitchers

It’s probably been awhile since you’ve read a traditional “buy low, sell high” article.  In today’s golden age of baseball analytics where complex physics and statistics can be boiled down to a few simple indicators accessed instantly using one hand, it’s not very often that we (readers, fans, fantasy players) find ourselves in possession of knowledge before the masses.  For example, try “selling” Avisail Garcia and his recent .375 wOBA around your league without getting some type of response that includes “yeah, but he had a .392 BABIP”.

Thankfully, despite all the data available at our fingertips, the one ingredient that will always play a critical role in the mixture of value is the human element of perception, which can swing wildly in different directions depending who you’re dealing with.  Today I’d like to isolate a few players who’s perception may be suppressing their actual value a little more than it should be, which may represent a buying opportunity for savvy fantasy owners prepping for 2018.  The good news is you don’t have to stand in line to land these deals, but you will still need to get them early.

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At the midway point of the season, it’s always interesting to see how teams are utilizing their pitching staffs. I’ve been examining workloads through the metric I created, called Fatigue Units. This metric accounts for days between appearances, stress during pitching, and time between pitches – you can read more about it here. TLDR; Fatigue Units appear to be a more accurate indicator of “overworked” pitchers than pitches, or innings pitched.

To start off – what does the midway point indicate about a pitcher’s workload? It doesn’t necessarily indicate what the workload will be by season’s end, but it does say that the pitcher has worked hard in the first half. It definitely says that the team has trusted that pitcher, and, that pitcher is very good. Here’s what the halfway point workloads looked like in 2016.

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Author’s Note: The article you see below was completed before Andrew Miller was injured by a comebacker on Wednesday. I believe the thought process and information below is still relevant and useful, even in light of this injury.

I love this time of year. Sure it’s fun to be doing my own draft prep. But a much underrated part of draft season is all the talk by others in the industry about their own processes. If you’re trying to learn about other strategies and improve at this game, the expert draft season is a treasure trove of goodies. A lot of the strategy and thought provoking discussions will dry up as we get further away from March.

I gobble up the draft recap articles and podcasts that come out of the LABR and Tout drafts because I’m such a junkie for the strategies and decision making processes others use.

And there were some interesting ones this year. Ron Shandler took his new BABS approach to Tout Wars. Steve Moyer attempted the Labadini plan. And there’s now a Tout Wars head-to-head draft with some interesting rules that will lead to interesting strategies (as Jeff Zimmerman wrote about on Rotographs (free!), Rotographs again (free!), and Rotowire ($$)).

But the one outcome I want to discuss wasn’t so much an overall strategy as it was a specific plan or series of decisions. Chris Liss, of Rotowire, drafted Aroldis Chapman, Andrew Miller, and Dellin Betances for a combined $38 in the AL Tout Wars draft (click here to see the entire results of all the Tout leagues).

Was this a good move? Or not? Read the rest of this entry »

It’s September, so innings limits, pitch limits, etc. tend to be a topic of discussion. Some teams are going the way of a six man rotation a la the Mets (well, until Matt Harvey gets shut down for the regular season) or moving starters to the bullpen such as the Nationals and Joe Ross. Regardless of the route teams decide to opt for, here are a few relievers who I suspect will get at least one or two starts in the final weeks.

Tyler Lyons, Cardinals — This is the first name that jumps to my mind when I think of RP/SP guys. He’s already made seven big league starts, and while the Cards aren’t set on a hard limit for Carlos Martinez, both he and Jaime Garcia would probably benefit from an occasional extra day or two of rest, or even a skipped start. Lyons is largely unowned, and is available in over 98 percent of CBS, ESPN and Yahoo! leagues. For someone who owns a 8.07 K/9 (20.2 percent) and a 4.39 FIP/3.91 xFIP in 100 1/3 innings career as a starter, he has uses in deep leagues where you’re looking for a win.
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Having the flu is a nightmare. The sweats, the all-night restlessness, the purging of all sorts of disgustingness from the body, it’s awful. Some like to huddle up under the covers all day for comfort. Some like to sip on some warm chicken soup. You know what makes me feel better? That’s right — the Kansas City Royals bullpen. Last season’s darlings in powder blue collectively posted a 7.3 WAR (second in the majors), a 9.57 K/9 (first), and a collective 2.55 ERA (second) over 461.2 innings. It was a thing of beauty, and best of all, they’re all returning again this season. Read the rest of this entry »

Last year the Oakland Athletics bullpen ranked in the top 10 in terms of ERA and FIP. More advanced metrics didn’t find as much favor with their body of work, as the A’s pen ranked middle of the road in terms of SIERA and xFIP. Given the park they call home, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the A’s relievers posted the second best HR/FB rate, coming in second to the Mariners. Being satisfied with the status quo usually isn’t Billy Beane’s style, and this offseason he moved around plenty of parts. There are some new faces to don the white cleats as well as some returning contributors, but the key is this team has fantasy relevant talent in this pen outside of the closer.

The closer
Jim Johnson

Johnson may be one of the new guys, but his job is secure as the club’s closer. His strong ground ball rate helps make up for his lack of swing-and-miss stuff and it is impossible to argue his recent work. Over the past two years Johnson leads baseball with 86 shutdowns against 15 meltdowns. For context, Aroldis Chapman has 80 SD and 14 MD and Craig Kimbrel has posted a 76:9 ratio. Johnson is a solid bet to gain saves and good ratios even if he lacks in the strikeout department.
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When the news broke that the Tigers signed veteran closer Joe Nathan, Detroit GM Dave Dombrowski also announced that the team and the man who finished the 2013 season as their closer, Joaquin Benoit, would be parting ways, citing that the 35-year old righthander was no longer “a fit for the Tigers.” With that, Benoit jumped into the free agent pool and came away with a two-year, $15.5 million contract from the San Diego Padres where he is expected to fill the exact same role he filled for Detroit when he first signed with them back in 2011; a bridge between starter and closer with the potential to close out games, if needed. The deal works well for both parties as Benoit gets a contract comparable to what free agent closers have been getting and the Padres get a replacement for, and upgrade to, Luke Gregerson. Read the rest of this entry »

Even if you haven’t been playing in leagues that value holds, it is hard to forgive for missing Ryan Cook’s past two seasons. Since the start of 2012 season, Cook has accumulated a 2.30/2.82/3.59 ERA/FIP/xFIP. His 3.14 SIERA for the past two seasons is just as impressive. Saves or not, those peripherals plus his 25.3% strikeout rate equates to a strong fantasy bullpen member.

Despite the fact that Cook ranked outside the top 50 of Zach Sanders’ 2013 End of Season Relief Pitcher Rankings, Cook has several positives going for him when looking ahead to this season. Last year his average fastball of 95 mph rated as the 24th fastest among qualified relievers. He is primarily a fastball/slider guy, though he will mix in the occasional change-up and sinker. As per BrooksBaseball.net, a table showing Cook’s pitch selection for all of last season can be found below.
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As you may have surmised, this week we here at RotoGraphs are looking at relief pitchers this week. Much of the focus tends to be spent on closers, but seeing as how volatile the ‘position’ is, the set-up men deserve their proper due. And one of the more reliable set-up men over the last few years who certainly deserves the recognition is none other than Luke Gregerson. The former Padres reliever has been a staple in the San Diego bullpen and given the frailty of Huston Street, the Padres longtime closer, he’s been as close to a must-own reliever as you can get without regularly accruing saves. However, now that Gregerson has landed in Oakland, his value heads south for a variety of reasons. Read the rest of this entry »

It is often said that closers are made, not born. Any experienced baseball fan knows this; it seems that for every Huston Street type who arrives with hype, four or five Jason Grillis, Andrew Baileys, or John Axfords slip into dominance after finding dead-ends in other roles. As such, predicting who will ascend to MLB closer roles (beyond the obvious “the best MLB non-closer relief pitchers”) is often a fool’s errand.

This becomes even more difficult when one attempts to find future closers in the minor leagues. Many of the pitchers who end up closing MLB games were starters all through their minor league careers, but it’s tough to project a minor league starter as a closer outright–in doing so, one is essentially saying “This pitcher will fail badly at the role he’s currently in and subsequently find tremendous success in a role he’s never pitched in.” Certainly plausible, but not something that seems like it can be said with much confidence. And minor league relievers–well, they’re equally problematic to forecast. After all, if a pitcher has a big future, why isn’t he able to crack a minor league rotation?

It’s certainly possible to envision any number of minor leaguers closing out ballgames–as so many sabermetricians are fond of saying, the role of garnering save totals can be accomplished reasonably effectively by any number of players, and the minor leagues have no shortage of interesting power pitchers that could fit a closer profile if things go their way. However, it’s quite another thing to actually predict that a minor league pitcher will end up amassing saves in the big leagues.

I think White Sox pitching prospect Daniel Webb merits such a prediction, though.

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