2016 Fantasy Baseball Bullpen Report: April 5

The novice fantasy player looks at bullpens and, unless he/she plays in a league that uses holds as a category, sees them as nothing more than a pond in which to fish for saves. A more experienced fantasy player understands the use of relievers as a way to not only find saves and holds, but to also maintain strong ratios while supplementing the squad’s strikeout totals. But it’s the fantasy champion who takes all of that and goes yet another step further. Not only does the fantasy champion know the ins and outs of every team’s bullpen, but he also knows how to turn that information into a way to scout the late-round starting pitchers to use all year as well as a number of hitters fantasy owners may want to avoid.

The goal of the Seasonal Playbook Pro’s Bullpen Report is to do just that -- turn all of you into fantasy champions. We’ll cover the closers, look at the holds guys and then we’ll also talk about the strength of a variety of bullpens which should help you when choosing starters to pick up off waivers and stream throughout the season.

Closers & Saves

Well how about that, Houston? Way to screw over all the fantasy owners out there. A.J. Hinch not only waited until the very last possible second to announce his closer, but he also went with the guy no one earmarked for the job. Yes, Luke Gregerson said he wanted to retain the position, but with the Astros trading names like Vincent Velasquez and Mark Appel, you would think that they were trading for Giles to be more than just a set-up man. Now obviously nothing is set in stone and this smells a lot like a young manager trying to appease his veteran reliever, so dropping Giles would be a huge mistake. If Gregerson is still sitting on your league’s waiver wire, you can be a little aggressive with your FAAB bid – maybe 20-percent? – but don’t break the bank just yet.

Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez also turned things upside down Tuesday morning when he announced that Arodys Vizcaino would be his closer for the season. Vizcaino entered Monday’s game in the eighth and tossed a scoreless inning while Jason Grilli came in and blew the save in the ninth after allowing one run on two hits and a walk. Talk about a short leash!. Again, we don’t recommend dropping Grilli at this time if you can avoid it, but for now, he’s going to just be setting up.

With the Phillies sending Andrew Bailey down, little-known Dalier Hinojosa becomes someone to keep on your watch list. We’ll talk about him more when we start talking holds, but with David Hernandez serving as the Phillies closer, Hinojosa could find himself in the saves mix sooner than later.

Holds

I understand why some fantasy leagues like to score holds as it increases the value of relievers, but I’m not really a fan. To me, it’s a lame-duck stat. A pitcher is awarded a hold if he enters the game in a save situation, records at least one out and leaves the game without relinquishing the lead or earning a save. So by definition, if a reliever comes into a game with a three-run lead and the bases empty and is yanked after allowing two runs to score while leaving another two men on base, he still gets the hold. How lame is that?

For the most part, people will be scouting good teams’ eighth inning set-up men as they seem to be the most-likely candidates to consistently acquire holds. Here’s a look at the top-10 relievers for holds last year:

Can’t say there are any real surprises here and there likely won’t be too many surprises moving forward this season either. If you’re looking for holds, my suggestion would be to go through the Closer Grid and start with the guys listed in the "On Deck" column. From there, obviously you then move to those listed under “In the Hole.”

Now while most people target a team’s eighth-inning set-up man for holds (likely because of the potential for saves), you can avoid fighting for limited help by targeting lefty or righty specialists – LOOGYs and ROOGYs. If you’re not familiar with the term, it stands for Lefty/Righty One Out Guy. It’s a cheap way to pad stats for a category. Players like Javier Lopez, T.J. McFarland, Boone Logan, Blaine Boyer, Casey Fien and Tony Sipp tend to fit that category. Sometimes they’ll see an extra batter here and there, but for the most part, they rarely stay in for a full inning.

As the season continues, we’ll keep track of the top holds leaders, but also look at a few guys to keep on your radar.

Bullpen Strength

While most people will cite the Kansas City Royals for delivering us the bullpen blueprint, there are other teams in history who have invested heavily in solidifying their bullpen in an effort to shorten the gap that needs to be bridged between starter and closer. The Yankees of the late 90’s did just that with Mike Stanton and Jeff Nelson setting up for Mariano Rivera during those championship years. But ever since the Royals did it a few years ago, more teams are starting to come on board.

Having a strong bullpen does plenty for a team, but it can also do plenty for fantasy owners’ starting pitchers. You’ve got fewer inherited runners scoring and there is usually an increase in win probability. Even if your league has replaced wins with quality starts, the advantage still ticks towards starters who have good bullpens for all the same reasons. Suddenly, it makes a little more sense to take a chance on a team’s fourth or fifth starter if the bullpen is strong over a team’s No. 3 guy on a team with a weak pen. Just to offer an example, I’m looking at a guy like Kansas City’s Chris Young or the Yankees’ Nathan Eovaldi before I look at Hector Santiago, Jimmy Nelson or Adam Conley.

We obviously need to see how things play out over the next couple of weeks, but for right now, it would seem that the best bullpens are predominately located in the AL East and the AL Central. The Yankees, Royals and Red Sox bullpens appear to be the strongest with the Orioles, White Sox, Blue Jays and even the Tigers following them. Heck, even the Twins and the Indians are lingering there.

As we continue through the season, we’ll also be adding a list of the top pens in the majors which should help your scouting with regard to mid/late-season starter streaming.