The Closer Conundrum

photo © 1913 The Library of Congress | more info (via: Wylio)
One of the most frustrating situations to deal with in the world of fantasy baseball is to accurately predict which arms will operate in the 9th inning for a club. There are locks with guys like Mariano Rivera, Jonathan Papelbon and Brian Wilson, but a good deal of teams either (a) don’t really know who their 9th inning arm will be or (b) don’t really have an arm that is capable of handling the role for the duration of the season. That situation has never been more acute than early in the 2011 season.

The Rays said they would roll with a committee to start the year, but Kyle Farnsworth is getting all the 9th inning work.

The Jays had a bunch of guys get hurt making the situation even more muddled. For now, Jon Rauch and Frank Francisco are likely to get work in the 9th.

The Orioles say Kevin Gregg is their closer, but Koji Uehara is lurking.

The Twins started the year with Joe Nathan in the 9th, but he struggled. Matt Capps is currently their arm of choice at the end of games.

The White Sox opened the year with Matt Thornton. Unfortunately he had the worst 5-game stretch of his career opening up the year. Jesse Crain and Chris Sale have struggled at times, so now it appears Sergio Santos might get a look.

The Rangers have lost Neftali Feliz to the DL leaving things, apparently, in the hands of Darren Oliver. He has four saves in 602 career appearances.

The Mariners seem ready to demote the successful Brandon League with David Aardsma almost ready to return from hip surgery.

The Phillies started with Brad Lidge who was hurt. They then moved on to Jose Contreras who was hurt. Looks like option #3 is Ryan Madson.

The Nationals started the year giving the ball to Sean Burnett, but he really isn’t a closer. Drew Storen, the club’s closer of the future, has looked great and it appears that he is now the man.

The Braves were going to split work between Craig Kimbrel and Johnny Venters, but it’s been all Kimbrel so far.

The Cardinals watched Ryan Franklin implode, repeatedly, before turning over the ninth to hard throwing, but inexperienced, Mitchell Boggs.

And it goes on and on, and we are talking about three weeks of games folks.

The point should be obvious – drafting relievers because of the roles they hold, and not based on the skills that they posses, is fraught with danger. Think of it. Of the 30 teams in the game a third of them have already switched things around in the ninth inning. And we see this every year. Put yourself back into your time machine and set the dial for March, 2010. Look at the following names who likely weren’t even drafted at all, or if they were selected it was only as a late round, shot in the dark, type of gamble in the last round.

Leo Nunez – 30 saves
John Axford – 24 saves
John Rauch – 20 saves
Alfredo Simon – 17 saves
Juan Gutierrez – 15 saves
Koji Uehara – 13 saves
Hong-Chih Kuo – 10 saves

There are arms every year that come totally out of nowhere – i.e. from the waiver-wire – to produce solid and sometimes difference making saves totals. 2011 will be no different pointing out, yet again, why you don’t always have to jump into the closer run on draft day. Just think if you passed on all the top closers this year and were astute about which middle relievers to roster at the end of the draft. It’s eminently conceivable that you could have ended up with Brian Fuentes (six saves), Jose Contreras (five saves), Brandon League (five saves) and Mitchell Boggs (three saves) on your roster. If you had done that you’d have rostered 19 saves for virtually nothing. What type of odds would you lay right now that 19 saves is similar to the totals you’ll likely get from guys like Andrew Bailey and David Aardsma this season?

In the end I think we need a new system to evaluate relievers. The way the system is currently set up rewards luck. Were you the first to run to the waiver wire to add Contreras when Lidge was hurt? Did you drop a quarter of your FAAB budget on Contreras only to see him come down with an injury? Were you smart enough to also add Ryan Madson? What about a guy like Mike Adams who has out pitched them all (0.82 ERA, 0.18 WHIP, 9.00 K/BB) but one who’s really not posting any fantasy value to speak of in a mixed league cause he has no saves?

My solution? I propose the fantasy game goes with Solds, a topic I discussed a year ago in Around the Horn, April 14, 2010. It’s not a perfect solution, but at least it’s a start.

 

By Ray Flowers

The Strikeout: Relievers

We all love the strikeout. There is nothing more exciting than seeing a hurler unleash a 98 mph heater that a batter has no chance to catch up to as he swings feebly before heading back to the bench with his head down. Yesterday in The Strikeout: Starters, I touched on my overall thoughts about how to understand and evaluate the strikeout, while focusing on which starting pitchers might be undervalued entering the 2011 season. Today, in the same vein, I’ll break down which relievers appear lined up for solid fantasy efforts in the coming campaign even if they currently don’t appear headed for 9th inning work (remember, it often makes sense to targets skills over role).

Relief Pitchers

No discussion about relievers could begin anywhere else than the Cubs’ closer, Carlos Marmol. In a season unmatched in the annals of the game, Marmol had 138 strikeouts in in 77.2 innings. That K-rate equates to a K/9 mark of 15.99, and that is the best mark in baseball history of any pitcher who threw at least 50 innings, one full batter better Eric Gagne’s 14.98 mark in 2003. In fact, so great was Marmol’s K-rate that his total of 138 Ks was better than the marks posted by the following starting pitchers:

Derek Lowe 136 in 193.2 IP
Joe Blanton 134 in 175.2 IP
Jaime Garcia 132 in 163.1 IP
Fausto Carmona 124 in 2101. IP
Bronson Arroyo 121 in 215.2 IP

Since we’re focusing on relievers in this piece, not starters with moderate K-totals, here’s a list of the top pitchers in baseball last season in K/9 amongst those that tossed a minimum of 50-innings.

15.99 Carlos Marmol
13.50 Billy Wagner
12.92 Joel Hanrahan
12.85 Rafael Betancourt
12.18 Stephen Strasburg
12.02 Matt Thornton
11.79 John Axford
11.50 Takashi Saito
11.45 Carlos Villanueva
11.21 Brian Wilson
11.19 Joaquin Benoit
11.08 Tyler Clippard
11.06 Heath Bell
10.95 Hong-Chih Kuo
10.95 Brandon Morrow
10.87 Ryan Madson
10.85 Sean Marshall
10.83 J.J. Putz
10.55 Octavio Dotel
10.54 Jonathan Broxton
10.52 Francisco Rodriguez
10.42 Bobby Jenks
10.42 David Robertson
10.25 Frank Francisco
10.23 Luke Gregerson

Only two starters are on this list – Stephen Strasburg and Brandon Morrow (you can read more about Morrow in the starters piece linked to at the top of this piece).

Evaluating Relievers

A couple of weeks back in How to Evaluate Relievers I gave some simple “rules” to use when looking at bullpen arms. In that piece I listed the 17 relief arms that tossed at least 60-innings last season with a K/9 of at 7.50 and a BB/9 mark under 3.00. Some of the names were likely fairly obvious, but others certainly weren’t. Here is that list again.

Casey Janssen
Matt Thornton
Sean Burnett
Rafael Soriano
Joaquin Benoit
Luke Gregerson
Joakim Soria
Neftali Feliz
Darren Oliver
Kyle Farnsworth
Edward Mujica
Matt Belise
Billy Wagner
Sergio Romo
Rafael Betancourt
Hong-Chih Kuo
Joba Chamberlain

What follows are my thoughts on some of the less than obvious names on that list. Remember, we are focused on the strikeout in this piece, but that doesn’t mean we want to neglect the walk as all the K’s in the world don’t mean a heck of a lot if a pitcher is walking every third batter.

Rafael Betancourt: In 2010 this Rockies’ reliever had a 12.85 K/9, and a 11.13 K/BB – marks that would make any pitcher who has ever tossed the ball blush. Rafael has 497.1 IP in his career leaving him 2.2 innings from becoming the ONLY man in history with a 9.50 K/9 mark and a 4.35 K/BB in 500 career innings (his career marks are 9.53 and 4.36).

Edward Mujica: I already broke down his historically significant effort of last season when he became one of just the fourth man in the history of the game to do something that will blow your mind. If you want to know what he accomplished take a look at Radiant Relievers.

Darren Oliver: He is old, boring and never drafted except in league specific scenarios. Still he has a two year average of 8.69 in the K/9 department and a 3.51 K/BB ratio. There are worse options to round out a bullpen in league specific set ups.

Kyle Farnsworth: The potential closer for the Rays over guys like Jake McGee and Joel Peralta, Farnsworth owns a career 9.04 K/9, but walks are usually a concern (his career K/BB ratio is 2.33). Still, he has done a better job the past two years throwing strikes leading to a 3.12 K/BB ratio in that time.

Matt Belise: Given that he owns a career 6.64 K/9 mark his rate of 8.90 last year was a bit surprising. Already 30 years old, did it just take him a while to put it all together? After all, his K/BB ratio the past two seasons has been special (4.40 and 5.69).

Joba Chamberlain: In many ways Joba out-pitched Daniel Bard in 2010 (you can read about that comparison in Hot Stove: The Arms Race). Of course, there are now reports that Joba gained weight this offseason, and not in a good way, and that his roster spot could be in jeopardy. With Rafael Soriano in the mix, the best Joba could hope for to start the year is the 7th inning gig, and that pretty much tanks his fantasy outlook.

And finally…

Craig Kimbrel: Kimbrel is kind of cheating since he didn’t reach the threshold of 60-innings for the above list. Still, when you strike out 17.42 batters per nine innings you get a mention, even if you only pitched 20.2 innings. Moreover, that mark of 17.42 per nine is the highest mark in history of baseball for at least 20 IP (the next highest mark is Marmol’s 15.99). Be careful though as Kimbrel also walked a sickening total of 6.97 per nine. To compare, his minor league numbers include a K/9 of 14.42 K/9 and a BB/9 of 5.66. Still, he is slated to open the year as the Braves’ closer.

By Ray Flowers

How to Evaluate Relievers

About two weeks ago I wrote How to Evaluate A Player in which I described a quick and easy way to evaluate players performance. That piece dealt only with hitters. In today’s article I’ll detail some of the key points you’ll want to consider when you are attempting to evaluate relief pitchers for the 2011 fantasy baseball season.

Target Skills not Roles.
This is the hardest idiom to abide by on draft day because though it inherently makes sense to target skills, it doesn’t always result in the most fantasy value. Let me address that “fantasy value” issue first.

There are five main categories in fantasy baseball for pitchers: wins, ERA, WHIP, Ks and saves. Obviously only reliever can pick up saves, and that marks “closers” as premium targets on draft day. However, there are many issues associated with this.

(1) Closers don’t hold their roles all season in many cases making it a volatile position to predict with any certainty.

(2) There are always a handful of guys who rack up large save totals that come completely out of nowhere (think John Axford who had 24 saves last year despite having only 7.2 innings of big league experience prior to the start of the season).

(3) Closers often rack up saves despite pedestrian results.

Francisco Cordero had 40 saves despite a 1.43 WHIP.
Bobby Jenks had 27 saves with a 4.44 ERA.
Ryan Franklin had 27 saves with a mere 5.82 K/9 mark.

(4) Having success closing games year-to-year is much harder than you would think. If a guy had 20 saves he’d probably be considered a low end second reliever, right? Do you know how many hurlers have saved 20 games in each of the past three seasons? The answer is only 12. Simply, it’s a very volatile, and variable, position – closing that is.

(5) Pitching the ninth inning to gain a save is a random event that is nearly impossible to predict. Factors that you have to take into account include:

* Did the offense score enough to gain the lead, without scoring too much to get past the limit for saves (3 run lead).

* Which reliever will be called on? Will the manager go with his best arm? Will he play the righty/lefty matchup game? Will he lean on the veteran who has been there and done that even though he hasn’t been pitching well? Will the manager give his reliever some rope and allow him to remain in the game if he lets people on base?

And that last point is really the main point of this whole exercise. In many cases its patently obvious which reliever a team should turn to in the 9th inning. However, that doesn’t always mean that team does the right thing and slots their most effective reliever in a 9th inning role. The bottom line is that there is no way to predict the opportunities than any reliever will be given, nor is there any way to get inside the head of a manager to understand how he will deploy his pitchers from game to game.

Therefore, this is what I recommend – target skills not roles.

Skills aren’t susceptible to the whim of a manager.
Skills aren’t dependent on the game situation.
Skills pay the bills.

What skills should you look for? A quick primer follows.

Target at least a 7.50 K/9 mark.
You need a reliever who can get out of a jam with a punchout. Also, the fewer balls that are put in play, the better the chance is that the batter won’t produce a hit (a brilliant statement I know).

Target a BB/9 mark below 3.00.
You can’t have a reliever come into a game searching for the strike zone.

Those two simply targets may not seem like much, but adhering to just those two categories and their benchmarks will likely help you from rostering relievers that will not hurt your ratios. Amongst relievers that tossed 60-innings last year, here are the only names that racked up a K/9 mark over 7.50 with a BB/9 mark under 3.00.

Casey Janssen
Matt Thornton
Sean Burnett
Rafael Soriano
Joaquin Benoit
Luke Gregerson
Joakim Soria
Neftali Feliz
Darren Oliver
Kyle Farnsworth
Edward Mujica
Matt Belise
Billy Wagner
Sergio Romo
Rafael Betancourt
Hong-Chih Kuo
Joba Chamberlain

That’s a pretty darn small list isn’t it?

There is obviously more to pitching than this simply review, but in terms of relief pitchers this type of data is extremely relevant. Also make sure you keep an eye on the GB/FB column, I’d look for numbers of 1.25 or better there if you can (big flies are murder on relievers).

At the end of the day there are very few “locks” at the closers position. After the first 20 or so guys are off the board I think it makes more sense to roster high skill relievers with major upside versus slacker relievers who are lined up to begin the year as the closer for their team. Sooner or later the lack of skills will doom those guys to mediocrity while your “skills guys” should continue to have success no matter what role they are asked to fill .

By Ray Flowers