Welcome to the final rendition of A Closer Look for the 2017 baseball season! Looking back, it's been another really successful season formulating draft strategies, identifying handcuffs and managing the buying/selling of players. We certainly had some misses (Brad Brach, anyone?), but we also had countless "early tailwind" predictions (Felipe Rivero, raise your hand!). For those of you still battling, congratulations on your fantastic fantasy baseball season! We're not going to totally abandon you this week, but we're certainly going to be focusing a larger portion of the column on a (very) early 2018 outlook.
There hasn't been a huge amount of activity over the last week, but there are certainly a few tidbits to take away.
Around The League:
-Kansas City manager, Ned Yost, gave Kelvin Herrera another shot to recapture the closer role on Thursday night. He got within one strike of handing the Indians their first loss in 21 games, alas, Francisco Lindor tempted fate and it turns out fate was on Cleveland's side as he hit a double to tie the game with two outs in the ninth, effectively handing Herrera his second blown save since "losing" the closing role. It's also worth mentioning that it was Brandon Maurer who ending up allowing the walk-off run in the 10th inning, so Scott Alexander should be on the radar for the next save opportunity.
-The Cardinals acquired Juan Nicasio from the Phillies last week. Yes, the same Nicasio that was just acquired by the Phillies from the Pirates. At the time, the move was baffling for the Phillies, but the pieces are beginning to fall together since it seems like the Cardinals had wanted Nicasio all along and they simply used the Phillies as a proxy to trade with an in-division opponent. Points for creativity and scheming. What we didn't realize was that the Cardinals actually wanted Nicasio to serve as their closer. With Oh struggling and the team seemingly unwilling to commit to Tyler Lyons, Nicasio is the man to own in St. Louis right now.
-Andrew Miller is officially back with the Indians, although it's doubtful he sees meaningful save chances the rest of the season as Terry Francona eases him back into action to shake of the rust before the playoffs.
A Closer Look Towards 2018:
-After a huge free agent class of relievers last off-season, the 2018 off-season brings a far smaller population of players potentially searching for new homes. In terms of current closers, Wade Davis (CHC) and Fernando Rodney are the only relievers who will look for a payday. Beyond him, there are also several set-up men who will also be hit the market, including Pat Neshek, Jake McGee, Koji Uehara, Addison Reed, Tyler Clippard, Tony Watson, Bryan Shaw, Seung Hwan Oh, Juan Nicasio, Brandon Kintzler and Bud Norris.
There are certainly some appealing arms in that group, including players who have saves recorded this season, but it's difficult to envision any of those players being fantasy-changing closers, if they were signed by a team with an opening. Speaking of teams with openings, here's a list of the teams that I believe will be in the market for a reliever, to at least compete for the closing job:
Chicago White Sox
Chicago Cubs
Detroit Tigers
Minnesota Twins
Kansas City Royals
Texas Rangers
Oakland Athletics
Los Angeles Angels
Arizona Diamondbacks
There's no guarantee that all of those teams will have new closers, but each of those teams will either be losing their current closer or currently rostering shaky options in the ninth inning. What this landscape does represent is how volatile the position has become. Managers no longer enter a season with the determination and assumption that their closer at the beginning of camp will definitely be their closer at the end of camp. The impact is more closing options for your fantasy team, although it comes at the cost of less certainty. As you approach the draft next season, you can no longer simply leave your draft with two closers. Now you need at least two along with a high upside handcuff waiting in the wings until they get their own opportunity.
Draft Prep Strategy:
Once we have a better idea surrounding the personnel of each team, we'll present a polished closer draft strategy included with the Fantistics 2018 Draft Software, but for now, we're present our general feelings. We entered this season with the strategy to grab one closer out of the top-10 ranked closers. That number just happened to be a round number, but it wasn't actually an arbitrary value. Instead, it was simply the number of closers that we felt had both the skillset and the job security to guarantee results for your fantasy teams for the entire season. As a reference point, below is a snapshot of my closer rankings, as of the first week in April.
While a couple of those pitchers did not come to fruition (Seung Hwan Oh, Mark Melancon and to an extent, Zach Britton), the remaining members of our top-10 have performed pretty closely to what we expected (Jansen, Chapman, Diaz, Giles, Kimbrel, Allen, Davis). So 70%, not great, but also could be worse. The strategy to grab one closer early only works if the closers in the bottom 66% don't keep their jobs, so let's take a look at how they fared there. Just six of the remaining twenty closers still have their jobs today (Colome, Herrera, Holland, Iglesias, and Rodney). Interestingly, two pitchers on the list are still closing, but not for their original teams (Ramos & Dyson). Even if we include those two, only 40% of the remaining closers kept their jobs all season. One can argue that even the 70% mark from the top 10 closers isn't enough to justify spending any early picks, and the best strategy is to wait until late in the draft and simply scoop high upside speculative handcuffs. In a vacuum, I love that strategy and it's one I both employed and touted for the last several years up until this year. The reason that strategy no longer works is because too many people are privy to it. It's suddenly more difficult to land all three of your targeted relievers because now half your league is targeted the same guys. That's why you can actually get a bigger edge by playing the percentages and taking at least one closer from the "Safe group" (number TBD) since not everyone in your league will be able to roster one of those closers. There's already enough variance through rounds 3-7, I'd argue taking an elite closer actually helps reduce that variance.
More to come on closer draft strategy as we finish up the NFL season and spend our cold winter nights dreaming of blue skies and baseball. It's been a blast writing this article for you each week and I hope I was at least somewhat useful to you as you chased for saves on your waiver wires. I loved all the interaction on Twitter from many of you and I hope to keep that communication open as we navigate through fantasy football. Good luck the rest of fantasy baseball season and I'll see you in 2018 (unless you're a MyFantasyFix NFL DFS subscriber, in which case, I'll see you next week!)!
Welcome to the final rendition of A Closer Look for the 2017 baseball season! Looking back, it's been another really successful season formulating draft strategies, identifying handcuffs and managing the buying/selling of players. We certainly had some misses (Brad Brach, anyone?), but we also had countless "early tailwind" predictions (Felipe Rivero, raise your hand!). For those of you still battling, congratulations on your fantastic fantasy baseball season! We're not going to totally abandon you this week, but we're certainly going to be focusing a larger portion of the column on a (very) early 2018 outlook.
There hasn't been a huge amount of activity over the last week, but there are certainly a few tidbits to take away.
Around The League:
-Kansas City manager, Ned Yost, gave Kelvin Herrera another shot to recapture the closer role on Thursday night. He got within one strike of handing the Indians their first loss in 21 games, alas, Francisco Lindor tempted fate and it turns out fate was on Cleveland's side as he hit a double to tie the game with two outs in the ninth, effectively handing Herrera his second blown save since "losing" the closing role. It's also worth mentioning that it was Brandon Maurer who ending up allowing the walk-off run in the 10th inning, so Scott Alexander should be on the radar for the next save opportunity.
-The Cardinals acquired Juan Nicasio from the Phillies last week. Yes, the same Nicasio that was just acquired by the Phillies from the Pirates. At the time, the move was baffling for the Phillies, but the pieces are beginning to fall together since it seems like the Cardinals had wanted Nicasio all along and they simply used the Phillies as a proxy to trade with an in-division opponent. Points for creativity and scheming. What we didn't realize was that the Cardinals actually wanted Nicasio to serve as their closer. With Oh struggling and the team seemingly unwilling to commit to Tyler Lyons, Nicasio is the man to own in St. Louis right now.
-Andrew Miller is officially back with the Indians, although it's doubtful he sees meaningful save chances the rest of the season as Terry Francona eases him back into action to shake of the rust before the playoffs.
A Closer Look Towards 2018:
-After a huge free agent class of relievers last off-season, the 2018 off-season brings a far smaller population of players potentially searching for new homes. In terms of current closers, Wade Davis (CHC) and Fernando Rodney are the only relievers who will look for a payday. Beyond him, there are also several set-up men who will also be hit the market, including Pat Neshek, Jake McGee, Koji Uehara, Addison Reed, Tyler Clippard, Tony Watson, Bryan Shaw, Seung Hwan Oh, Juan Nicasio, Brandon Kintzler and Bud Norris.
There are certainly some appealing arms in that group, including players who have saves recorded this season, but it's difficult to envision any of those players being fantasy-changing closers, if they were signed by a team with an opening. Speaking of teams with openings, here's a list of the teams that I believe will be in the market for a reliever, to at least compete for the closing job:
Chicago White Sox
Chicago Cubs
Detroit Tigers
Minnesota Twins
Kansas City Royals
Texas Rangers
Oakland Athletics
Los Angeles Angels
Arizona Diamondbacks
There's no guarantee that all of those teams will have new closers, but each of those teams will either be losing their current closer or currently rostering shaky options in the ninth inning. What this landscape does represent is how volatile the position has become. Managers no longer enter a season with the determination and assumption that their closer at the beginning of camp will definitely be their closer at the end of camp. The impact is more closing options for your fantasy team, although it comes at the cost of less certainty. As you approach the draft next season, you can no longer simply leave your draft with two closers. Now you need at least two along with a high upside handcuff waiting in the wings until they get their own opportunity.
Draft Prep Strategy:
Once we have a better idea surrounding the personnel of each team, we'll present a polished closer draft strategy included with the Fantistics 2018 Draft Software, but for now, we're present our general feelings. We entered this season with the strategy to grab one closer out of the top-10 ranked closers. That number just happened to be a round number, but it wasn't actually an arbitrary value. Instead, it was simply the number of closers that we felt had both the skillset and the job security to guarantee results for your fantasy teams for the entire season. As a reference point, below is a snapshot of my closer rankings, as of the first week in April.
While a couple of those pitchers did not come to fruition (Seung Hwan Oh, Mark Melancon and to an extent, Zach Britton), the remaining members of our top-10 have performed pretty closely to what we expected (Jansen, Chapman, Diaz, Giles, Kimbrel, Allen, Davis). So 70%, not great, but also could be worse. The strategy to grab one closer early only works if the closers in the bottom 66% don't keep their jobs, so let's take a look at how they fared there. Just six of the remaining twenty closers still have their jobs today (Colome, Herrera, Holland, Iglesias, and Fernando Rodney). Interestingly, two pitchers on the list are still closing, but not for their original teams (Ramos & Dyson). Even if we include those two, only 40% of the remaining closers kept their jobs all season. One can argue that even the 70% mark from the top 10 closers isn't enough to justify spending any early picks, and the best strategy is to wait until late in the draft and simply scoop high upside speculative handcuffs. In a vacuum, I love that strategy and it's one I both employed and touted for the last several years up until this year. The reason that strategy no longer works is because too many people are privy to it. It's suddenly more difficult to land all three of your targeted relievers because now half your league is targeted the same guys. That's why you can actually get a bigger edge by playing the percentages and taking at least one closer from the "Safe group" (number TBD) since not everyone in your league will be able to roster one of those closers. There's already enough variance through rounds 3-7, I'd argue taking an elite closer actually helps reduce that variance.
More to come on closer draft strategy as we finish up the NFL season and spend our cold winter nights dreaming of blue skies and baseball. It's been a blast writing this article for you each week and I hope I was at least somewhat useful to you as you chased for saves on your waiver wires. I loved all the interaction on Twitter from many of you and I hope to keep that communication open as we navigate through fantasy football. Good luck the rest of fantasy baseball season and I'll see you in 2018 (unless you're a MyFantasyFix NFL DFS subscriber, in which case, I'll see you next week!)!
