Nationals Trade for Kelvin Herrera: Fantasy Baseball impact

The Nationals added another piece to their bullpen by trading for closer Kelvin Herrera. How does this impact fantasy baseball going forward?

The Washington Nationals entered the 2018 season as the favorites to win the National League East and possibly the World Series. As of June 18, they are three games behind the Atlanta Braves in the division. With close to three months of baseball in the books, the front office needed to do something.

Enter Kelvin Herrera.

The Nationals made a surprising move by adding another dominant bullpen arm on Monday. Herrera was having arguably his best season to date. In 25.2 innings, he posted a 1.05 ERA, 0.818 WHIP, 7.7 K9, 0.7 BB9 and 14 saves.

The move makes sense because for both teams. The Royals are not competing and want to cut salary as they look to rebuild, again. The Nationals have the 12th-best reliever ERA at 3.69 and fourth-lowest strikeouts with 213.

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Washington made a similar move last season as they acquired Brandon Kintzler, Sean Doolittle and Ryan Madson at the trade deadline. All three pitchers are still on the roster, though Kintzler is soon to come off the 10-day DL.

The Nationals have used all three pitchers, four if you count Sammy Solis, effectively. No reliever has more than 30 innings pitched. Though Doolittle is clearly the closer with his 17 saves compared to three from Madson and two from Kintzler.

Herrera will slot into middle relief, losing most of his fantasy value. Though, if you use holds, then he is still effective. Herrera can still provide low ratio and a high strikeout rate.

On the other side of the trade, the Royals have a spot to fill in their bullpen. Looking at their depth chart, it’s hard to see a clear front-runner for the closer job. Only two other relievers have recorded at least one save. The ESPN Fantasy Closer Chart lists Kevin McCarthy as the next man up.

McCarthy has a 3.86 ERA, 1.121 WHIP, 5.6 K9 and 2.1 BB9 in 30.1 innings. If I were to guess, I think Ned Yost goes with a committee between McCarthy, Brad Keller and Brian Flynn as the lefty.

I would not look to pick any of them up initially. However, if someone starts to get consistent usage, then I’d throw a couple of bucks towards that pitcher as a speculative add.

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If I were a Herrera owner, I’d be a little upset. Saves are hard to come by with more teams going with a committee approach. Fantasy owners already saw Alex Colome lose some value by being traded to Seattle. If you still need the other stats, keep Herrera. He may back into a save or two each week anyway.

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