It’s long been a strategy in season-long leagues not to spend draft capital on closers in the interest of pursuing saves on the waiver wire. Today we’ll look at some of the teams with unsettled closer situations and see how the managers of those teams have treated unsettled bullpens in the past to get an idea of who to add if you’re looking for saves.
Baltimore Orioles
We’ll go in alphabetical order by city and start with the O’s. Buck Showalter’s team will be without Zach Britton for at least a month and a half. Brad Brach has picked up three saves since Britton last pitched on May 4, but he has also blown a save since then and Darren O’Day has a save in Britton’s absence.
Britton has had the closer’s job on lockdown for a while now in Baltimore, ever since mid-May 2014 really. And in the two seasons before that, Jim Johnson was busy throwing up 50 saves a season. The last time Showalter didn’t have a set closer was in 2011 when Kevin Gregg recorded 22 saves and Johnson recorded nine.
Gregg came over to Baltimore after closing 37 games for the Blue Jays the year before and started the season with the job. Gregg essentially held the job until September even though he finished the season with a 4.37 ERA, a sub 20-percent strikeout rate and more than six walks per nine. The transfer of power probably took so long because while Johnson was better than Gregg, he wasn’t dominant. Prior to taking over the job that season, Johnson had a respectable 2.82 ERA but only struck out about six batters per nine.
The year prior, Koji Uehara took the closing role in Baltimore from Alfredo Simon. Uehara didn’t make his debut that season until May, and it took him a little more than two months to take over the job as opposed to the five months it took Johnson to take the job from Gregg. Uehara was dominant prior to taking the job with a 1.80 ERA pre-closing with more than 10 strikeouts per nine.
It's important to note that neither Gregg or Simon went on a string of blown saves right before losing the job, but instead lost it after being given plenty of rope with which to hang themselves and someone else finally coming along and kicking the bucket out from under them. The long story short is that based on Showalter’s past, Brach should have a lot of leeway, and O’Day or someone else is going to have to pitch very well for a long period of time to steal the job.
Detroit Tigers
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A little less than a week ago, Francisco Rodriguez was removed from the closer’s role. Justin Wilson was named as his replacement and has the team’s only save since K-Rod lost the job. Manager Brad Ausmus has had a true closer in two of his three full seasons as Detroit’s manager with Joe Nathan in 2014 and K-Rod last year. But in 2015 closer Joakim Soria was moved at the deadline and Ausmus had to make do without an obvious closer.
After Soria was traded, Bruce Rondon and Neftali Feliz split the job with five and four saves, respectively. Both guys pitched poorly with ERAs of 4.67 and 4.71 after the Soria trade. Wilson has a 3.16 ERA for his career with a 3.42 xFIP to back it up. His biggest issue has always been control, but his walk rate has been in single digits for three straight seasons now, so there’s not much reason to think he’s going to pitch poorly enough to force Ausmus into a committee.
When Ausmus has named a closer and that closer has pitched reasonably well, that guy has kept the job. Unless Wilson really starts struggling, you can expect him to keep the job.
Los Angeles Angels
Like the Angels, the O’s have lost their closer to injury with Cam Bedrosian still without a timetable for his return, though he did start throwing again about a week ago. Bud Norris has recorded six of LA’s seven saves in Bedrosian’s absence with Jose Alvarez getting the other back on 4/28.
While it would seem that the job is pretty well Norris’ at this point, Mike Scioscia’s history should cast some doubt on that. Fantasy owners who chase saves likely remember last year’s bullpen-ocalypse that was the Halos with four relievers recording six or more saves and none cracking double digits in saves. They only had 29 saves as a team last season, and the way they were divvied up made the bullpen virtually worthless from a fantasy perspective. Huston Street was healthy enough to save 40 games in 2015, but prior to his arrival in LA in July of 2014, Ernesto Frieri and Joe Smith split the saves with 11 and 15, respectively.
Norris has a respectable 3.32 ERA so far this season, but he has blown a save and taken two losses already in May. Other relievers like Blake Parker and David Hernandez are pitching well enough that Scioscia would have options if he wanted to go to someone other than Norris or to start splitting up saves again. Parker has a 36.1 percent strikeout rate, and Hernandez has 10 strikeouts and no walks in 9.1 innings this season.
Parker and Hernandez aren’t necessarily strong adds given that any saves they got would likely be as part of a committee. But if you own Norris, you might look to deal him to a trade-hungry owner before news about Bedrosian’s return starts to trickle out because he could end up losing the sole possession of the job even before Bedrosian’s return.
Milwaukee Brewers
The Brewers are in a situation like that of the Tigers having announced Neftali Feliz will no longer be the closer as of last Friday. It’s a bit difficult to know what manager Craig Counsell will do in an unsettled situation because he has had nothing but a solid closer in his two-plus seasons in Milwaukee. K-Rod was his closer in 2015, and he recorded 38 saves with a 2.21 ERA. Last year Jeremy Jeffress racked up 27 saves with a 2.22 ERA before being dealt to Texas at the deadline. Then Tyler Thornburg racked up 11 saves after Jeffress was dealt before blowing three saves in the last two series of the season.
Jared Hughes got the first save after Feliz was removed from the job but only because Corey Knebel was unavailable that night. Knebel recorded the save for the Brewers on Sunday, and he has an impressive 41.4 percent strikeout rate this season. Given that Counsell has never been in a situation where his closer was pitching poorly, it’s hard to say how much rope Knebel will have. But there’s no evidence that Counsell will choose to go with a committee, so Knebel is a solid add if he has not yet been picked up in your league.
Player News
Andrés Giménez was removed from Wednesday’s game against the Angels with right quad tightness.
It sounds like a precautionary measure. There should be an update on his status prior to Thursday’s series finale out in Los Angeles.
Kyren Paris hit a two-run homer in Wednesday’s win for the Angels over the Blue Jays.
That’s the first homer for Paris since April 9 when he went deep twice against Tampa Bay and caused everyone to lose all sense of rational thought. The 23-year-old did also single and walk to improve his on-base percentage to .311,, while the homer bumps his slugging mark to .378. There is long-term upside in Paris with flashes that suggest he can be a fantasy option. Fantasy managers should still absolutely looking elsewhere for options up the middle.
Jorge Soler hit a three-run double in the bottom of the ninth to give the Angels a 5-4 win over the Blue Jays on Wednesday.
Trent Grisham went 1-for-1 with a game-tying two-run home run in the eighth inning of a 4-3 win over the Padres on Wednesday.
While the Yankees won this game on a walk-off in the 10th inning, Grisham’s game-tying home run in the eighth was the biggest moment. He came on as a pinch-hitter for Jorbit Vibas against the usually stout Jason Adam and smashed a two-strike changeup into the right field seats. This clutch shot will only continue to push Grisham’s playing time in the right direction after he just started eight of the last 10 games, hit either first or second in each, and already has 10 homers in 31 games played this season.
Jeff Hoffman blew a save and picked up a loss Wednesday against the Angels.
Devin Williams struck out three batters with one walk and hit another in a scoreless 10th inning to earn the win against the Padres on Wednesday.
The Yankees entrusted Williams with the all important 10th inning and the inherited ghost runner on second base after their dramatic comeback. While he loaded the bases and had some tense moments, he left the inning unscathed and opened the door for them to win it right after. It should be noted that Luke Weaver came on for what were the most important outs of this game at the time, after Ian Hamilton walked two to begin the eighth inning and Weaver allowed both of those inherited runners to score. He was called upon as the fireman though and will likely get the next save opportunity. Still, this was a massive step in the right direction for Williams.