Fantasy Baseball 2018: Relievers are more important than ever

Fantasy baseball used to be built on hitters, starting pitchers and closers. Now, all relievers are gaining value and leading to fantasy success.

Fantasy baseball experts used to urge owners to wait on drafting closers. Most obliged as only nine were drafted within the first 10 rounds this season. With that, though, middle relievers and set-up men are becoming more valuable for fantasy success and should be drafted even more in 2018.

The first closer drafted in leagues last season was Kenley Jansen. He finished as the best fantasy closer. Looking at non-closers, David Robertson finished ninth but he did close for the Chicago White Sox for the first half of the season.

The first true non-closer to rate in the top-25 relievers was Chris Devenski. He did record four saves but was primarily used in multi-inning situations as he recorded 100 strikeouts and 23 holds. In leagues that use those two stats, Devenski was a top-10 reliever. Andrew Miller and Chad Green were two more dominant pitchers that didn’t record many saves.

More from Fantasy Baseball

ESPN’s Tristan H. Cockcroft posted his fantasy superlatives (best hitter, worst pitcher, etc.) two weeks ago. Within the piece, he talked poorly about wins. I have too, many times. Wins as a stat does not measure the true skill of a pitcher and should not be used in fantasy.

It relies on a starter to pitch a minimum of five innings, the offense to put up more runs than the opposing team and relievers to hold onto that lead.

There were “442 ‘cheap wins’ (wins in non-quality starts): most in history.” Quality starts are 6 IP/3 ER games. That is a pitching stat to use in fantasy if you want to draft the best starting pitchers first.

Jeff Samardzija had just nine wins but 20 quality starts. We all know the San Francisco offense was not what we expected so the wins were going to be low. However, he pitched well enough on an individual level. On the flip side, Brad Peacock had 13 wins but only eight quality starts. Kenta Maeda, 13 wins and five quality starts.

Another stat that shows how valuable relievers are becoming is that “49,409 outs recorded by relievers or 38.1 percent of all outs recorded: both most in history.” Innings pitched is a stat some leagues use in addition to the others. Those 49,409 outs equate to 16,469.2 innings. Those are innings not provided by your starting pitchers.

Only 15 pitchers reached the 200-inning mark last season, same as the prior year. However, Chris Sale led the league with 214.1 innings. That would have ranked him ninth in 2016. David Price led all pitchers with 230.0 innings pitched.

Twelve pitchers averaged 100 pitches or more per start. Some of that is situational based. Pitchers reach that mark in five innings while others take all nine innings to get to 100. Yet, there were 17 pitchers to average that number in 2016.

Baseball managers are using their bullpens more than any other year. Alex Putterman of The Atlantic wrote about bullpens taking over baseball’s postseason. Jansen and teammate Brandon Morrow were first and second in postseason innings pitched. But, this trend started years ago.

There were 20 relievers with at least 70 innings pitched in 2015, 33 in 2016 and 28 in 2017. I can only predict that number to continue to rise as managers over-managed the starting pitchers to prevent injury and control the game.

Even with the rise in relief pitchers, they should still not be drafted in the first five rounds. Injuries and poor performance can change how a bullpen looks in just a couple of weeks. Just look at the St. Louis Cardinals. I like to draft at least one middle reliever with the hopes he can get saves to go along with the low ratio stats and strikeouts.

Next: Alex Cobb's 2018 fantasy value

Having the perfect combination of elite closers and dominant middle relievers is an important piece to a winning fantasy season.

Home/Fantasy Baseball