Fantasy Baseball Bullpen Report: April 11

Fantasy Baseball Bullpen Report: April 11, 2016

Closers & Saves

Despite the normal volatility that bullpens see over the course of a full season, one week in to the 2016 MLB calendar, it seems like it’s all quiet on the home front. More or less, that is. Just as the season opened, we saw some surprising choices made both in Houston and Atlanta and while we thought we had a good handle on the Phillies relief corps, manager Pete Mackanin threw fantasy baseball owners for a loop with his declaration that Jeanmar Gomez would be the team’s ninth-inning specialist. At least for now.

The A’s have some fantasy owners scratching their heads a little lately as Sean Doolittle has now twice appeared in the eighth inning while 35-year old Ryan Madson has closed out both games to earn a pair of saves here in the first week. Everyone seemed to have Doolittle tabbed as the team’s primary closer, but after a conversation with A’s beat writer Melissa Lockard on my Sunday night SiriusXM show, it appears to be a bit more complicated. Doolittle is still expected to help close out games, but the operative word is help. It seems that, with Marc Rzepczynski as the only lefty in the pen, manager Bob Melvin said that he will continue to use Doolittle when the situation calls for a southpaw in the eighth inning. If that means he has to use Madson or even former closer John Axford in the ninth, that’s what he’s going to do. Look for it to remain a committee situation until they get another trusted lefty to work the middle innings.

Should we be concerned here? Maybe a little. Francisco Rodriguez isn’t going to sit on the hot seat, nor should Glen Perkins. Both have proven themselves over the years, so an early-season speed bump likely won’t have any real adverse effect. However, the others could find themselves in a bit of hot water.

Jason Grilli was already supplanted after his Opening Day meltdown and there are very few people who believe Santiago Casilla was made to be a closer. Casilla took a while to land the job as the team was using Sergio Romo to handle the work. But when Romo imploded, the team simply didn’t have any other quality options. Casilla got the job as a default and with the team winning three championships in five years, manager Bruce Bochy wasn’t exactly rushing to address the potential issues. Well now it’s a different story and the Giants know that the times they are a-changin’. Casilla’s leash should be shortened which should bump the potential value of Hunter Strickland.

Shawn Tolleson had some late/post-season struggles last year, so look for the team to keep a fairly short leash. He won’t get yanked after one poor outing, but with hurlers such as Keone Kela, Tom Wilhelmsen and Sam Dyson lurking, things could get a little jenky for fantasy owners. The same can likely be said for J.J. Hoover who failed in the role last season but seemed to have a strong enough spring to fend off the likes of Jumbo Diaz and even Tony Cingrani this year. Good enough to get him a bit of leeway with regard to the position’s volatility? We’ll see.

Holds

We’ll focus on the holds and strength of the late-inning set-up men, but it’s certainly worth noting some early-season struggles as 20 relievers were charged with blown saves after their misfires in the seventh and eighth innings. Nine of those guys did manage to secure a hold for their respective team with White Sox reliever Nate Jones locking down two, but none of them actually rank atop the holds leaders for this short season.

Now we could sit here and list everyone on the leaderboard, but as I said last week, holds tend to be a tough category to pin down just because of the inane rules that govern what is and what isn’t a hold. In fact, there were 40 different relievers who registered at least one hold over the first week of the regular season. I mean, really? Forty? Seems like almost everybody was getting in on the action.

But again, if you’re going to have to play with this inane and arbitrary statistic, you’re going to have to make some moves/decisions. Obviously, the top four on the above list should be considered. As for players who should start to accrue more, here’s a handful from which to choose:

Darren O’Day, David Hernandez, Koji Uehara, Neftali Feliz, Tony Watson, Sam Dyson, Ken Giles, Justin Wilson, Nate Jones and Keone Kela. Plenty of other names will pop up, but again, I look for relievers who usually find themselves in high-leverage situations. Those are the guys the managers trust most and those will be the ones asked to protect the most leads.

As for which team bullpens you want to raid for holds, here’s a list of the top-12 teams to date:

Strength of Bullpens

Again, it’s still a little on the early side to make some of these judgment calls, but for now, let’s provide you with a list of the Top 10 bullpens around the major leagues. These bullpens are the ones that should see significant saves work and have a middle relief corps that is capable of holding a lead for multiple innings, thus giving you the potential for multiple holds in each game while also securing wins for their starters. We’ll continue to look at other numbers as well, but for right now, Here we go…

2016 Closer Grid