The Chacon Zone: A Few Relievers To Buy

The sheer amount of data points we have at our fingertips these days, while immensely useful, can be overwhelming. Seemingly, any one player, particularly this early in the season, can surge to the top of the leaderboard of your most trusted stat. One of my favorite heuristics for identifying sustainable breakout performances is very simple. Based on a handful of my favorite peripherals, I filter the leaderboards for those performing above average across all of them, in effect isolating standouts while hedging against the inherent volatility of performing well in a single stat. It’s not perfect but it’s a quick-and-dirty methodology that serves its purpose. 

Last week, I presented a list of pitchers who were better than average across K-BB%, swinging strike rate, Zone-Contact percentage, and ground ball rate. I focused on a few available starters while promising to cover some of the relievers this week. Lowering the innings threshold a tad (min. 14 IP), here are the relief pitchers all boasting better than average performances across the board in the aforementioned stats along with their ownership rates in Yahoo! leagues.

Given that we’re looking at relievers, there are a ton of widely available names, not all of which I can get to. I’ll try to limit my write ups to quick hits in the hopes of covering as many players worth mentioning (and one of whom I’m just a huge fan). Happy to field any questions in the comments section below.

Let’s start by looking at those teams will multiple relievers on this list and see if we can’t stumble upon a possible closer controversy. The current closers for the Astros, Brewers, Padres, Reds, Rockies, and Royals all appear meaning that, at least by the selected benchmarks, they’re pitching well even if their fantasy stats might suggest otherwise. However, since their setup men, or at least their bullpen-mates, also appear on this list, they face stiff competition and may not have much of a leash if they falter or their top line statistics fail to catch up to their underlying indicators. 

As great as Brad Peacock has pitched, Ken Giles’ job is safe. During his first five innings this season, Giles gave up five hits and four walks on his way to allowing 5 earned runs. A .455 BABIP and 50% strand rate will do that. Since then, he’s been magnificent and has brought his ERA down to a respectable 3.44. He’s seemingly resolved the homer problem that emerged last season as his ground ball rate, 39.6% in 2016, is back up above league average this year. 

Even if Giles’ job was in jeopardy (and it’s not), Peacock presumably wouldn’t be first in-line for the job; he doesn’t even make the closer grid on our Bullpen Reports. But regardless of save opportunities, the former starter is worth owning, particularly in deeper leagues due to his multi-inning usage and superb production. Averaging 1.59 innings per appearance, you can plug Peacock into a starting pitching slot (at least in Yahoo! and, when he starts, Ottoneu formats) and reap strong rate stats and strikeout totals. 

In some ways, Peacock is Chris Devenski-lite. In addition to an excellent strikeout rate and multi-inning usage patterns, he possesses a similar fastball-slider-change combination but with a curve he occasionally mixes in to keep hitters off balance. Walking about twice as many batters, he lacks Devenski’s command. However, armed with a better ground-inducing arsenal, he’s also less homer prone.

Don’t expect him to post a sub-1 ERA and WHIP moving forward as his BABIP and strand rate are both due for significant regression but in leagues where good starters are difficult to come by, Peacock is worth an add. 

Corey Knebel’s strikeout rate is almost as high as his 44% ground ball rate. That’s incredible. Since taking over as closer, he’s given up a lone hit over 4 innings and struck out nine. Of course, he’s also walked four as well. Knebel has always had control issues but as long as he keeps striking out nearly half the batters he faces, he has a margin for error most others dream of. 

Knebel’s 8th inning counterpart, Jacob Barnes, doesn’t boast the same swing-and-miss stuff. And his calling card last year had been his command, manifested in a 5.7% walk rate over 26.2 innings. This season however, Barnes is walking almost as many batters as Knebel is. While he continues to do so, there’s no reason for him to be owned in all but the deepest leagues and those counting holds.

The Reds’ and Rockies’ closers, Raisel Iglesias and Greg Holland, both made the list. However, like Giles and Knebel, they’re pitching so well that neither is in jeopardy of losing save opportunities to his bullpen-mates. And while Chris Rusin in Colorado is admittedly unexciting, Wandy Peralta, despite the lack of save or hold opportunities, is enticing. He makes for a great add, particularly in Ottoneu 4×4 leagues.

Peralta’s 70% Z-Contact% and 18.4% whiff rate rank 7th and 5th among relievers, respectively. And among those with a 50% ground ball rate or higher, he’s second in both stats. Keep an eye on Peralta’s usage; if he finds himself pitching later innings, of which he’s assuredly deserving, he’s a potential breakout star in leagues that reward holds.

Now, San Diego and Kansas City are where the 9th inning starts to get interesting. On the surface, Brandon Maurer has been atrocious and given Andy Green’s decision last night to send him out in the 8th so that Brad Hand could pick up the save, it appears that Maurer’s days as closer are numbered, if not over. His ERA is the second worst among active closers behind Fernando Rodney and his WHIP fifth worst. With just five saves to-date, he really hasn’t been worth the trouble. But without knowing for sure whether Hand is now the Friars’ closer, and he very well might be, it’s worth noting that Maurer has pitched far better than his results indicate, as his inclusion on this list would suggest. By K-BB%, Maurer ranks 29th out of 184 qualified relievers and his first-pitch strike percentage, 4th. 

And even while his StatCast data is a mixed bag, higher than average exit velocities but slightly better than average barrel rates, there’s no plausible justification for a .400 BABIP or 51.9% strand rate. Not surprisingly, given how many batters Maurer has struck out and how few he’s walked, his FIP and xFIP sit dramatically lower than his ERA. In fact, the 4.20 differential between his ERA and FIP is the third highest in baseball.

But given last night’s developments, Hand is clearly the play in San Diego both in terms of rates, strikeouts, and now saves. If you can roster both in the short-term, you should just until there’s a clearer picture of the 9th inning in A Whale’s Va San Diego but for now it looks like Hand is the guy. 

In Kansas City, Kelvin Herrera has pitched better than his stats seem to indicate. However, there are concerning signs with respect to his batted ball data that don’t show up on the FanGraphs leaderboards. Like Maurer, Herrera has been worse than average with respect to average exit velocity. But whereas Maurer has limited balls-in-play within the ideal range of exit velocity and launch angle, Herrera has been atrocious at doing so. He ranks in the bottom percentile in barrels per plate appearance. He also sits in the ninth percentile in percentage of balls-in-play with an exit velocity over 95 mph. 

Whatever the reason, perhaps because he’s throwing more strikes this year to the tune of a career high Zone-percentage, hitters are making harder and more frequent contact than they did last year. And Herrera unfortunately lacks the luxury of Maurer’s dearth of competition. Joakim Soria has been better in every respect. He has a higher K-BB%, lower Zone-Contact%, better whiff rate, and a significantly better ground ball rate. He’s also done a much a better job limiting hard contact as well. 

Soria makes for both an excellent speculative saves play in all leagues and a helpful add in deeper leagues as well.

A couple others on the list who I like:

Watching Tony Watson is harrowing at times. His setup man, Felipe Rivero, simultaneously calms the nerves with his combination of pinpoint control and dirt-pounding ground balls and tantalizes with a four-seamer that touches 100. Among non-closers, he’s as good as any and worth the add.

I’ve loved Liam Hendriks for a while now. The subject of an ill-fated 2016 Bold Prediction, I just couldn’t quit the stout Aussie in the offseason. And I’m glad I didn’t.

Noting that Hendriks could benefit by throwing his slider more frequently and locating his fastball more discriminately down in the zone, he must be have read the piece (there’s simply no other explanation) because he’s both throwing his slider 20% of the time, up from 16% last season, while pounding the bottom of the zone with his four-seamer. The results have been, well, just look:

For a more thorough analysis check out the piece linked above. There’s no real saves play here, not much of a holds play either; Hendriks’ four is tied for 57th in the league and only 3rd on the A’s. I’m not even sure his 0% ownership rate is all that undeserved. Until he finds himself pitching more consistently in later innings, he’s really not worth owning except in the deepest of leagues. I guess I’m just a fan. 

Last week, I included a list of droppable healthy starters who were lesser owned than the article’s featured players. The pitchers this week are largely interchangeable so rather than drag this article out longer than necessary, here’s a list of healthy relievers to drop for (pretty much) any of the aforementioned names:

Ryan Madson (39%)
Sam Dyson (23%)
Derek Law (23%)
Matt Albers (23%)
Mike Dunn (9%)
Alex Wilson (8%)
Really, any reliever owned in less than 8% of Yahoo! leagues