Fantasy Baseball Today - Relief Pitcher Recap & Early 2023 Rankings w/ Greg Jewett! (12/20 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: December 20, 2022

Greg Jewett of Reliever Recon joins the pod (2:30)! ... What is the state of relief pitching (6:40)? ... How are we attacking saves heading into 2023 (10:52)? ... Let's recap the top-10 from this past season, starting with Emmanuel Clase (16:14). ... Will Ryan Helsley keep this up (18:30)? ... Edwin Diaz just had a career year (20:13). ... Daniel Bard made a pitch-mix change this past season (22:28). ... Kenley Jansen is one of the safer closers out there (25:03). ... Could Liam Hendriks be on the move (26:06)? ... Do we have concerns with Scott Barlow (29:30)? ... Can we trust Camilo Doval (31:40)? ... News (37:40): Seth Lugo signed with the Padres. ... Let's try and predict each team's saves leader (41:00)! ... We wrap up with Scott's early 2023 relief pitcher rankings (57:41). Fantasy Baseball Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Get Fantasy Baseball Today merch here: https://store.cbssports.com/collections/fantasy-baseball-today?utm_source=podcast-apple-com&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=buy-our-merch&utm_content=fantasy-baseball-collection Follow FBT on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@fbtpod?_t=8WyMkPdKOJ1&_r=1 Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @FBTPod, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday Sign up for the FBT Newsletter at https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters/fantasy-baseball-today/ For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday You can listen to Fantasy Baseball Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast." To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast from CBS Sports. Got a fantasy question, email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your lead. Where fantasy becomes reality. Now here's Frank, Scott, and Chris. At last, we've made it to our final position recap, and of course, we saved the best for last. Relief pitchers.

Welcome in to Fantasy Baseball today on December 20th. Frank Sandville joined by Scott White and a very special guest that we'll get to in just a bit. But first up, Scotty, this is your last fantasy baseball today podcast of the year. First one. Yeah. Last one for a while. I know. It is. It is the last one of 2022.

I suppose if there's a certain emergency that happens within a certain window of time, I might be able to hop on. I'm not going to bother you, Scott. You're not going to enjoy the holidays, man. I'm not going to bother you. I'll either go live by myself or I'll, hit up the well, I'll make him do a little extra work or something like that, but you'll be, you'll be all right. Anyway, today we're talking about relievers, so you know who we had to have

join the podcast. Once again, the owner of Reliever Recon, closer expert for the athletic, also contributor over at Baseball HQ, had the pleasure of meeting this fine gentleman out in Arizona, first pitch, Arizona. It was great to meet him in person. Greg Jewett, welcome to the show, buddy. How's it going, man? I'm well, you know, keeping the burning the midnight oil here, but it's all good, especially, you know, reliever talk. Always welcome to do that. And, you know, you guys had me on for the first time last year, so I'm more than honored to be back.

So I appreciate you having me on. This is your specialty, right? Like, this is your area of emphasis, the bullpen. Yeah, somehow. I joked with people who asked me out at, like, even first pitch. Bullpenes kind of chose me. I never really planned on it. It just sort of a couple of different sites.

It kind of became a niche thing. and my old, the original league I played in, I never wanted to pay in the auction the prices that closers went, so I would work all season to find them. And it just kind of bled into all this. You never know where things are going to take you. But yes, you know, and at the tail end of my, not the tail end, but my fandom with the Yankees watching Rivera all those years, it made an easy segue to focus on the ninth inning with someone like him holding the torch for me. Are you a Yankees fan?

I grew up a Yankees fan. I try and stay. It's weird. I don't blend it into my stuff. But yeah, in the Reliever Recon group chat, I complain about Yankee stuff often. All right, so good to know. I didn't know that about you.

So, you know, we can, I guess, commiserate or, you know, enjoy the season together, depending on how you look at it. I did want to just highlight again, owner of Reliever Recon, what is that? You can go over to patreon.com slash reliever recon. and if you are a competitive fantasy baseball player, you play in the NFBC,

if you play anywhere where saves, holds, where you need to be on top of this stuff, I cannot recommend it enough. I am a subscriber to the Patreon because frankly, there are nights where things slip through the cracks as much as we do this. And Greg is on top of all of it. He's got great Google sheets.

He's got all these kind of fancy tables and posts and everything. So again, if you are playing competitive fantasy baseball, I cannot recommend that enough. Also, a hell of a hell of a hell. head to head points league player. I got to point that out because we had a ridiculous matchup in Tout Wars Head to Head Points League where I was up big, then Greg was up big, and it was like a two and a half week matchup way too long. But great player in a very

competitive matchup. So I got to give it up to you, Greg. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. Of course, you're the two-time defending champ, so I didn't, I came up like France. It came up a little short there in the final, but it was, you know, it was fun and it was a it was a roller coaster and it's been a terrific lead to be a part of. And yes, the reliever recon, especially for folks who struggle in season to identify saves or we also cater to the head-to-head leagues. One of our writers puts out a daily column about guys who get those vulture wins, like somebody has slated to come in after the opener or if a pitcher's going to go like four innings for the Cubs. And then he usually nails, I mean, his hit rate was ridiculous.

during the season. So we also talk about sparse, all those things. So it's not just we're talking about saves. We do try and cater to different league formats. And obviously we are NFBC centric as well. So you call them sparps. That is a term you've adopted. That's like become an industry.

I think so, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I remember when Nondo introduced it on this podcast, starting pitcher is relief pitcher. and we've just kind of been calling it that ever since. But it's interesting to hear that it's stuck. It's gone beyond this podcast and out in the real world. Of course, all Hylnando.

Yeah, I mean, it was a great call, great nickname. We still use it to this day for those of playing head to head points league starting pitchers as relief pitchers. And we will touch on those a little bit later on. Frankly, there's Spencer Strider and who else? I don't really know. Hopefully Scott's got a few names because I found a few. They're not very good pitchers. So we'll talk about that a little bit later.

He's far and away the best one. Yeah, it's not really close. Anyway, let's start off with the state of relief. We'll take a look at the top 10 relievers in 5x5 roto leagues from this past season. We'll quickly run through each team and just kind of give out a very loose prediction on who we think could lead each team in saves. And then we will look at Scott's 2023 rankings towards the end of the podcast. The state of relief league saves over the past five full seasons.

So this is excluding 2020. Back at 2017, 1,179, then 1244, 1,241,1,24, 1180 in 2019, 1191, 1191, and then 1,232 saves this past season. So the highest we've seen since 2018, 222 different relievers with a save. Over the past five seasons, we never broke 200. Now we're pretty decently over 200. And what is the breakdown of those saves? So I've noticed that there are less 20 plus and 10 plus relievers than the past five seasons, which means by deduction, there are more single-digit save sources than ever before,

which is obviously not the best thing for fantasy. We won as many, you know, 30, 25, 20-plus relievers and closures as we could possibly get. Of course, Emmanuel Class A was the league leader in saves this past season. 42 saves for the Cleveland Guardians. We'll talk about him in just a little bit. He was ridiculous. But Greg, we'll start with you. What do you think about the state of bullpins right now, really how they have evolved over the past decade, five years or so?

And your thoughts on how saves are distributed in baseball today? Well, there's almost becoming two different camps. There's the teams that will either have or rely on the linear pathway, which is what we in fantasy prefer, which is pitcher X is. in the seventh, pitcher Y is in the eighth, and pitcher Z is in the ninth. And then that's pretty much what we have is standard practice. However, teams like the Rays and the Mariners now and others are being more adaptable with I'm using what we at the site call the HLR, which is the highest leverage reliever, which is you're my best reliever. So when the two, three, four pocket or three, four, five pockets coming up, you're facing them. So it could be the seventh. It could be the seventh. It could be

the eighth or it could be the ninth. But if that's the case, and you saw Andres Munoz being used like that in the playoffs against the Blue Jays. He was in against the heart of the Blue Jays order in all those games, not not reliant on inning. It was when Vlad Garillo Jr. and those guys were coming up, then you were seeing Andres Munoz because they felt that that was their best chance to get those players out. So as more teams go to this, and then you have teams like the twins that use arbitration as a way to keep salaries down. So, you know, Taylor Rogers complained openly that they would never use him as the closer because they didn't want to pay money in arbitration.

So you've got all of these different, you know, schools of thought coming into play, which makes the saves tougher because, you know, the true closer that we like to use the term are becoming more rare. So it gets things a little dicier. So now we're talking about if you want to get one guy, and we'll talk about this later, you know, to try and you think is going to be a stable source of saves and you kind of spackle around them, that's okay.

But if you're doing the old, I'm not paying for saves and you're waiting until your end game, it's very dicey because you can end up with a guy that only gets a max of 10. It's just a different game right now. And it really depends on franchise. and all of those factors I described. I've had a really smart fantasy baseball players tell me that

no matter what, you will pay for saves one way or another. You're either doing it in the draft based on draft capital, whether you're using a top 50 pick, a top 100 pick for one or even two save sources, or you're going to pay for it big time in fab. So no matter what, you're going to wind up spending money for saves if you play in a 5x5 Roto League. And Scott, speaking of which, how do you attack saves in those 5x5 roto leagues? We know typically it's nine pitcher spots.

You can divvy those up however you want. I think most people will go six starters, three relievers, or seven starters, two relievers. But what has been your approach? And do you maybe plan to change that moving forward in 2023? Well, first, I want to say, you know, to your you will pay for saves one way or another. It probably depends how deep the league is, too. I know most of the expert class, the analyst class, whatever you want to column. They tend to gravitate toward the 15-team leagues now, but that's still not a widely

played format overall. And certainly if you play 12 teams or 10 teams, you know, 10 teams, you can probably still make due off the waiver wire pretty well. But I don't typically play in much shallower than 12. I'd say the majority of my leagues are 12, and there are a handful of 15 teamers as well. And I think I'm to the point where I have to recap, consider my approach because you know at this time last year you know we were talking about these same trends

which have only been exacerbated now year later but having followed the bullpins over the course of the year okay you'd end up with a bunch of bullpins where the saves were distributed between a few different guys but in all

but a handful of cases it was more like okay this guy was the closer for a while and then he lost the job to this guy, and then maybe that guy lost the job and gave it back to him. It wasn't so much in every day as a different reliever coming in for the save situation. I think we saw that with more teams last year,

certainly the Rays and the... Who else did you mention? The Twins. Who was the other big one, though, the Rays and the... The Reds do it, the Mariners. I mean, C-Wald did get 20, but there were times where they wouldn't use them the ninth.

He was the primary safe source, but they definitely shifted that when they were in the playoffs. The pirates for a while, the Cubs, even after the Cubs traded away David Robertson, it's like we're constantly chasing a different guy. And they weren't getting safe chances that often, so that made it all the more frustrating.

So it's almost like a third to a half of the league. is leaning into this more. And I noticed you mentioned at the top, Frank. Okay, there were fewer 20 and 10 saves guys this past year. But you didn't mention 30 saves guys. 30 saves guys remained about the same. Yeah.

Exactly the same, right? There were 11 of them. Three straight years, there's been... No, it's been nine in the last two years. Okay. Unless you count Class A. Okay, there were 10 last year, right? Do I have this in the notes right?

I have 10, but I could pull it up again. So it stayed about the same. It stayed between 9 and 11 the past few years. Yeah. And what that says is you can't keep up with the teams that have the 30 saves guys as easily if there's not as many 20 and 10 saves guys available. So that kind of forces you into paying up for saves to a degree. I don't like doing it.

I hate doing it because it's one category. category. And, you know, the way their values are getting pushed up the high-end closers, particularly in those 15-team roto leagues, some of these guys are getting taken in round two or three. Like, there aren't that many stud bats out there either. Like, you need to get those guys early. So is it really worth diverting for saves? I can't do it that early. I feel like I'm probably, certainly in a deeper Roto league situation, I'm probably going to have to have to to make sure I get one from like that Kenley Jansen class, Felix Bautista.

Somebody who you feel really good is for sure their team's closer, at least until they lose the job, at least the plan is for them to for sure be their team's closer so that you have a chance of getting one of those 30 saves guys and then maybe getting two more relievers over the course of the draft who you feel pretty good. will be at least a strong part of the saves mix for their team. Yeah, so basically you're talking about relievers like five through 10 in ADP,

something like that where maybe it's a top 75, top 100 pick, something like that. Yeah. To get that, you know, that lockdown guy. That's how I've typically done in the past too. One of those going in like five to 10 in the reliever rankings, maybe one in the 11 to 20, one that you, you know, feel okay pretty good about. And then you just take like a few spec sources later on in a direction. but I have been a little bit more prone to take that first guy,

more so than I ever have been in years past. I think I've done two and a half NFBC draft so far. And I took Emmanuel Class A because he lasted until the middle of the third round. And at that point, I just felt like it was really good value to have what I think is maybe the best closer in the game. And let's start there. The top 10 relievers in 5 by 5 roto from this past season. Number one, no surprise, Emmanuel Class A who led baseball with 42 saves. He had just seven of those through May.

we thought, oh man, slow start, what's going on with Class A? A lot of the times it's not because of the reliever, it's circumstance. It's, you know, is the team up by three runs? Is the team winning enough? You know, there's, it's very fickle trying to get saves. 35 of them from June 1st on for Emmanuel Class A. He's just been ridiculous the past couple of years. Since the start of 2021, a 1.33 ERA, by far the best among qualified relievers

with a 0.84 whip, which is also the best. it's going to cost a lot. You're looking at, you know, maybe even in home leagues, probably a top 40 pick, a top 50 pick, something like that. But if you want the best closer in baseball, arguably, then I think it's worth it for a manual class thing. Yeah, I remember talking about him last year and you guys were like, really? And I stood by, I stood by, and it's hard to believe he's only going into his age 25 season.

It's like, you know, wow, he's young. And with his delivery and body size, I don't think the pitch clock's going to be a big factor for him. I think he'll be able to recover and adjust to it fairly quickly. And yeah, I mean, he, and Francona is very good about keeping them mostly fresh. He did use them, he did use them a little heavy in a couple of spurts, but then he gave him a couple of days off to give him that rest that he needed. And there's enough arms in that bullpen with Stefan and Corinchak,

so they don't have to like over, overuse them and risk injuries. So, you know, he's pretty insulated. it and you know his role and he's been fantastic, as you alluded to. So, you know, he's an easy 100 mile per hour. I mean, it's like he's not even putting forth effort and the ball's just exploding out of his hand. And he's not afraid to pitch to contact. He knows he can get ground balls with that cutter. So he just attacks hitters and that's what we want. I don't want to, I don't want to watch my closer from fantasy go out there and walk the bases loaded and try and wriggle out of it. Most of his blown saves were weak contact and just he got Bapit and that's

what we want. So I have no issue with getting them. It really will depend on the price point in whatever format I'm in and how it's going. Number two on this list is a name that we have not seen in years past, but he broke out in a big way this year. Ryan Helsley was the second best reliever in five by five leagues. How did he do it? 19 saves, nine wins, ridiculous ratios and ridiculous strikeouts. for the St. Louis Cardinals. Scott, I looked into what changed from 2021 to 2022. And there were a lot of things that changed

from fastball, jumped two miles per hour. The slider whiff rate went up about eight percentage points. His control improved dramatically. So the question is to you, how much do you trust these improvements for Ryan Helsley? And how much do you trust the Cardinals

that they'll actually use him as the main guy moving forward? Well, I do trust the improvements. I think Ryan Helsley is an elite reliever now. As for how much I trust the Cardinals, I mean, as long as Giovanni Gallegos is still there, I think it's going to be

it's not going to be a 100% situation for Hellsley. It's going to be better than 50-50, or at least it was looking that way over the course of the second half. But it is kind of amazing that he managed, with only 19 saves, he managed to place second

among relief pitchers. I think the nine wins is probably not something you can count on again. And I would pretty much not target a reliever for wins. If I'm, like, he doesn't deserve, as good as I think Ryan Helsley is, he doesn't deserve to be drafted second at the position or top five or even top 10 at the position, I don't think. He is the best of the, he's the best of the relievers who I don't think have a, you know,

firm grasp on the closer roll. That's what I'd say for Housley. The third best reliever this past year, surprisingly enough, right? I mean, as ridiculous as he was, Edwin Diaz, who had a career year, which earned him a massive paycheck by the Mets, and rightfully so. 1.31 ERA, 0.84 whip, 32 saves, 17K per 9, 24.6% swinging strike rate. That is just unheard of. That is just uncanny stuff for a reliever.

118 strikeouts. No other reliever was above 96. So just to put that in perspective, how much better Edwin Diaz was. He used a slider at career high 58% of the time and obviously helped lean into those strikeouts. Scott, I mean, there's not really much else to say. As long as he can keep the control, you know, somewhat under wraps here, then I think Edwin Diaz should be amazing once again. Little sneak peek, who are you taking?

Him or a manual class A, first closer off the board. I'm taking Edwin Diaz mostly because of that strikeout difference. It was more than 40 strikeouts separate. rating the two. That's kind of Class A's weak point, and it's clearly Edwin Diaz's strong point. But I do think even acknowledging that gap in the strikeout rate, it's a close call because part of the reason Diaz finished only third among the relievers is because there were times down the stretch when the Mets were trying to hold off the Braves that Buck Showalter used him in the eighth inning instead of the ninth and went with Adam out ofino for the save.

So even though we think of Edwin Diaz is one of those surefire closers, and I'm not saying he's not, but Buck Showalter introduced this uncertainty, this small little kernel of uncertainty there that probably prevents Edwin Diaz from getting to 40 saves. I mean, not many are going to get to 40 saves, but I would bet against him especially doing it. Yeah, I think that's probably situational more than anything, just where they're at in the season, and probably the Braves' best lineup, part of the lineup was coming up in the eighth inning or whatever it might be.

So I think that's why we might have seen it down the stretch, but I would say, you know, moving forward. No doubt about it. Edwin Diaz is clearly the closer for the Mets moving forward. The fourth best reliever this past season was Daniel Bard, who had an awesome season, 1.79 ERA, 0.99 whip. 34 saves, the sixth most in baseball. Pitching for the Rockies.

It's just kind of crazy stuff here for Daniel Bard. And Greg, he completely changed his pitch mix from 2021. He ditched his four-seem fastball. He went purely with a sinker and a slider. And that seems like it would make sense. You know, if you give up some contact in Colorado, if you can keep it on the ground, hopefully, you know, that contact isn't so bad. How much are you buying this breakout season from Daniel Bard?

And would you be okay with him as your first closer in a rotel league? If it was a 12 team and I have an absolutely stacked offense, I'd be okay with it. But I would prefer him. Here's the thing. Like last year, if you want to quote the main events, he was only taken in 25 or 47, so just over half. I mean, and these are supposed to be, I mean, that's, you know, as high stakes as it can get. So he found his way onto a lot of top 25 team rosters just because of what he's. provided. It was in spring where he kind of emerged with the role and ran with it and the

the tweak Mitch and being again had a healthy season. His velocity ticked up a smidge. So I'm okay. But at the same token, you know, getting a repeat season like that from somebody that's going to be 38, you know, there's the old adage don't pay for a career year. So I'm not sure that I would not be 100% comfortable with him as my number one. If he was my number two, I'd be feeling pretty good because I can back him up as the draft moves along. But, yeah, you know, again, he had a great year. And I love, he was on, I think, for my five N of BC team. So I appreciate everything that he did.

But, you know, we got to take all that with a grain of salt and just dial back for a little bit of regression this year. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I would agree with that. And he's in college. You mentioned he's 38. And he's in Colorado. And they tried this with him in 2021.

and I think that's part of the reason there was so little enthusiasm for drafting him. Not that there was in 2021 either, but it went so poorly ERA over five, lost the job. Yeah, you shouldn't have to draft him is more than a number two. And I'd be fine with him there.

I agree with you, but clearly not. Not in it, like, you know, just the guys who get a lot of saves end up being high in the rankings. Yeah, that's because there's so few who do. It's very reactionary. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Fifth best reliever this past season was Kenley Jansen, who had 41 saves. He was one of only two relievers with 40 plus saves this past season. Of course, the other one was a manual class A, as we mentioned. Even at 35, Kenley still got it, man. ERA a little bit inflated 3.38. The whip was very good at 105.

And clearly going to be the closer for the Boston Red Sox moving forward. Scott, you already mentioned Kenley Jansen referencing him that you'd be fine with him as your first closer. And I agree. I think he is pretty much as safe as it come. Pretty much. Pretty much. He's done it for so long that like the ERA has trended up over in recent years. I mean, even this past year, 338, that's not ideal for a closer.

But he was never in danger of losing the job with the Braves. The Red Sox have been searching for a closer since Craig Kimbril left, really at times when Craig Kimber was there. So there's going to be every incentive to keep him in the role, even if he goes through rough patches. Yeah, I feel confident. confident he'll deliver a big saves total by season's end. All right. Greg, I've got two more names for you here. Number six and seven on the list from this past season. Jordan Romano with the Toronto Blue Jays who had 36 saves, the fourth most in baseball.

Liam Hendricks, who has been one of the mainstays the past couple of seasons at the relief pitcher position. He had 37 saves as well. The immaculate control that we've become accustomed to wasn't necessarily there for Liam Hendricks this past season. He got off to a bit of a rough start, but then definitely settled down as the season went along. These are two guys who, again, are rock solid. And if you want them, you're probably going to have to pay a decent price tag. But I think it's worth it. I think that they proved that,

you know, they are, again, using the word safe, a little bit scary when it comes to closers. But I think both Romano... That is the other thing with investing big in a closers. It's not... Yeah. It's known for being a pretty volatile role. I think you want guys that you've seen do it over multiple seasons. And great, we've seen both of these guys do it. Jordan Romano and Liam Hendricks. Yep. Yeah, I have no issue with either. Now, I will say I find it strange that the reports came out before the winter meetings about how the White Sox were going to listen to trade offers on Hendricks. I mean, that's, I mean, I don't know. I mean, he's a great representative of the team and things of that nature. And it just struck me as funny that it was it was put out there. I mean, it was in the athletic and it was in other interviews with the team saying it. So I'm really curious. Is Hendricks going to be in Chicago when the season starts? To me, a team that seems desperate for a reliever would be Texas, and I think they might pay the prospect capital to get Hendricks in there, especially with what they did to add to Grom and Heaney.

It makes total sense. We'll have to see how all that shakes out. But, you know, and you mentioned it about Hendrix, two straight years, he was terrible in April. So, you know, hopefully if you get him, just don't panic and drop. him at the end of April because he's just been a slow starter for two straight years now. So I think that's just something we have to adjust for. But the key for me is I want to see the dominance back. His 02 counts versus his 3 O counts really swung last year in a bad way.

So we want to see him going after hitters again. I think he was really nibbling. So we want that we want that walk rate to come down and hopefully that will help his ratios. And Romano was a workhorse. I'm not overly worried about him because there's not a whole lot of competition to replace him in that bull done. With Romano, if you watch this guy pitch,

I think there's something wrong with him. I think there kind of has to be something wrong with you, just like a little bit of your closer just to kind of have that mentality, but he's like talking to himself and he's always got this like maniacal look in his eyes. Yeah, he's the antithesis of Mo. Yeah, Jordan Romano.

Interesting, dude. Pure speculation, though, Greg, if the White Sox were to trade Hendricks, who do you think, would kind of slot in there. You're looking at like Kendall Graveman or maybe even a Ronaldo Lopez for them? Well, you know the answer. I'm on team Ronaldo and we'll see what happens because the pitching coach came out,

Katz and said, if anything happened with Hendrix, we trust Lopez as the closer. There's a lot of smoke here. Again, it could end up being nothing. But when you read between the lines, I don't know. I just feel like something's a brew and the white socks are going to shake things up. All right. Well, let's stay in the AL Central, rather, and we'll move over to Scott Barlow, who was the eighth best reliever this past season. And he's been one of the better relievers since the start of 2021. This past season, a 2.18 ERA 1.00 whip. Scott, some things I do worry about when it comes to Scott Barlow.

Fastball velocity dipped from 2021, 95.3 miles per hour to 93.6. So nearly a two mile per hour drop on the fastball year over year. and I might be overthinking this, but their new manager is Matt Quattaro, who came over from the Rays. He was their bench coach. We know the M.O. that the Rays have. I don't know that he's going to use his bullpenes the same way,

but he has been around a manager in Kevin Cash, who has typically kind of gone bullpen by committee or used multiple guys at a time. So I just kind of have that in the back of my mind. What do you think about Scott Barlow? Are you worried about either of those things? Yeah, I'm concerned about both of them, Obviously, he doesn't have a long history in the role.

And it took Mike Mathini, the previous manager, a long time to come around to more or less making him the closer. And so, particularly these days, as differently as bullpins are managed, you have to worry about any time a new manager comes in. And, yeah, there's a question of will Scott Barlow be as effective again? Now, he has been a good reliever two years in a row, but with the strikeout rate and home run rates both going in the wrong direction last year, it's hard to feel safe with him. Again, somebody I'd be totally fine with it,

my number two reliever, kind of like we're saying for Daniel Bard, but a lot of risk factors there. Yeah, I did... And on a bad team. I did a way too early draft out in Arizona where I met Greg in person, great guy. And I took Felix Bautista at the 5-6 turn, 15-team league, and then I think I got Barlow at like the 11-12 turn,

and that seemed pretty late. So with him as my second closer in a drafted hold format, I'm right getting him that late. But again, I wouldn't want to be relying on him as my first closer, even if I waited for some reason. Number 9 and 10 this past season among relievers, we had Paul Seawald and Camilo Doval. Paul Seawald completely reinvented himself heading into 2021,

and it carried over. He had a 0.77 whip this past season. He was really, really good once again. He had 20 saves, but the great Andres Munoz is kind of looming there as well at the back end of their bullpen. I know that Seawald had a couple of surgeries here in the offseason as well. So we'll see how he looks in spring training and make sure he's back on track health-wise. Camillo Duval, really, really great stuff. Fun to watch, 2.53 ERA.

Still kind of struggles with control. We see that in the 1.24 whip. And Greg, as much as I love the guy and I love watching him pitch, Camilo Doval. all, just when it comes to Gabe Kapler, I can never fully buy in. Look, I was one of those people who drafted Jake McGee last year, even though Scott was begging everybody not to do it, and I still did it. So, you know, I'm the fool, clearly. What was my bold prediction regarding McGee's saves total prior to the season?

I'm pretty sure your bold prediction was he would not get five saves, and he did not get five saves. He did not get five saves. That was a really good call by you. No, but it's interesting because Gabe Kapler kind of ushered in this era of the leverage guy, right? The mixing and matching and the late innings based on who's coming up in the opposing lineup.

So it was interesting how he went away from that last year and did turn Camilla Deval into a more conventional closer. He did? Yeah. Camilla Deval had 27 saves. So again, can't argue with that, but it's always kind of lingering in the back of my mind. Greg, what do you think about these two relievers, these two bullpens, the Mariners and the Giants? Well, of the two bullpans, I would prefer Duval

just because I have a pretty, plus who there is going to take the roll from them. I mean, what? I just don't see John Brebbya being a, I don't see them being threats to him doing it. So I do like also that Deval, he introduced a sinker in August and then he had a really good September. Now, we don't know if that's going to happen. It's a small sample size. But his command and his whip did go down the last part of the season. and I think he converted eight in a row or eight of his last nine saves.

So I'm hoping that this is a guy who's going to actually break. He could be a breakout guy for this year. I kind of like where his price point is. He's in that bucket of if I'm going to let saves drift a little bit, I would be willing to take him for an upside play depending on the format that I'm in. But, you know, I'm definitely higher on Deval than most this year. but I'm okay with that. Where are you at on Team Seawald versus Team Andrus Munoz?

Well, I think we know Munoz at right now is probably the better pitcher, but it doesn't guarantee him save chances, just like everyone's drafting Yohan Duran over Jorge Lopez, but unfortunately, the latter's probably going to get the primary save share just because of the arbitration things I talk to you about. So, you know, just because of, we want as fantasy community the new shiny toy to be the closer that we want them to be doesn't mean the team agrees with our assessment of it. I'd want to see how Seattle shakes out and I think

Matt Brash is a sleeper in that bullpen too, especially he could be like the Munoz this year, a guy who racks up a bunch of strikeouts and gets up some cheap wins and probably gets like five saves and he'll be very valuable, you know, especially the deeper your league. So, these are the things we have to pay attention to. It's not what did the guy do last year. It's what's going to happen this year. All right. Once again, the top 10 from this past season.

Top 10 relievers in 5 by 5 Roto, Emmanuel Class A, Ryan Helsley, Edwin Diaz, Daniel Bard, Kenley Jansen, Jordan Romano, Liam Hendrix, Scott Barlow, Paul Seawald, and Camila Duval. We will get to more names in just a bit. But first, make sure, if you're listening,

and you've enjoyed us all season long, all year long. Give us five stars on Apple and Spotify. or Spotify, wherever you listen to, feel free to drop a review on Apple as well. We do really appreciate it. And you've noticed on our YouTube, we've been highlighting it a few times here as well.

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that we're throwing on TikTok. So make sure to follow us there as well. Let's take a break and we'll be back right after this. All right, let's get into soon news and notes before we get back into the relievers. And in case you're wondering why we haven't talked about Danes v. Swanson or all the kind of crazy stuff that happened this weekend, we did a bonus podcast

on Sunday night, breaking it all down. So if you haven't listened to that, go check it out. Danes Btswiswomenes, Michael Brantley, Justin Turner. We talked about all the happenings from the weekend. But there were a few smaller things that we didn't get to that we'll talk about right now. Seth Lugo signed with the Padres,

a two-year $15 million deal, and he has not started a game since 2020, but Scott, the reports are that Seth Lugo is going to start. And if you look at the Padres, the way that they're constructed right now, it looks like both Seth Lugo and Nick Martinez are going to be starters for this team. Do you have any interest really late in drafts

in either one of those guys? More likely in points leagues, because they are going to have that relief pitcher eligibility, that's PARP eligibility. Even then, have to be a pretty deep points league. I mean, we've saw enough of Nick Martinez starting last year that I'm, you know, I don't feel like he's going to be a difference maker.

It's been a long time since we've seen Seth Lugo start, but, you know, he's kind of tapered off as a reliever. And I just, I just want to say I'm that optimistic. So deeper points league's options, both of them. Drew Smiley apparently is close to an agreement with the Chicago Cubs. and if he does sign there, the rotation would likely be Marcus Schroeman,

James and Tyone, Kyle Hendricks, Justin Steele, and Drew Smiley, which I don't know what this would mean for Hayden & Winski. I do want Wisneski to be a thing. Normally these things work themselves out,

so we'll see what happens. But Smiley quietly had a good season last year, 3.47 ERA, 1.19 whip, and a 12.4% swinging strike rate. Greg, do you have any interest in Drew Smiley in deeper leagues? Yeah, I would have him ahead of both of the people Scott got tasked to talking about. So, you know, and it's one of those things where I'll just, you know, if you can use him in the right matchups or if he gets hot, you can definitely do it.

Now, we have to balance schedule this year so you can't just focus on him against NL Central teams. But yeah, I'd be okay with targeting Smiley, especially because he's not a name that's really going to move the needle. So I like getting those guys late as somebody. that you can stream in and out rather than getting those two star guys and he gets blown up. All right, we got a few other small signings. Alston Hedges signed a one-year $5 million deal with the Pittsburgh Pirates. Garrett Hampson signed a minor league deal with the Marlins. Billy Hamilton also signed a minor league deal with the White Sox.

And Scott, let me know if this matters because I don't know if it does. I saw some people talking about it on Twitter today. Clayton Kirshaw announced that he's pitching for Team USA in the World Baseball Classic, which should be a lot of fun. It's usually going on in I think March, maybe February as well. But basically, it kind of like supplant spring training. It was very fun to watch however long ago they did it three, four years ago. Do you worry about someone like Kirshaw who's, you know, he's been injury prone

pitching in something like that even before the season starts? I think this has gone on long enough that I don't think there's any data to support concerns. Because obviously they're, you know, they're only pitching. at a time at a time in the World Baseball Classic too. Obviously, it's more competitively than we imagine they are in spring training. But I haven't seen enough concrete evidence that it really makes a difference. So I'm not going to fade Kershaw based on that. All right. Well, let's quickly run through each team and just give a thought of who we think might be the saves leader in 2023. Again, many things could change. The Baltimore's,

Greg, I think we feel pretty good about Felix Batista, right? Love the mountain. Yes, I love the nickname, too. He is a huge human being, six foot five. More on him in just a little bit. Scott, Red Sox, Kenley Jansen, no surprise. Yep. For the Yankees, Greg, our New York Yankees.

It looks like, for now, if they don't make any other moves, Clay Holmes is probably the guy. What do you think? I agree. And I kind of left the Yankees out. They might engage in the Hendricks talks, too, if he's really truly available. All right.

For Tampa Bay, we know that they routinely use multiple relievers or they'll use one reliever for some period of time and then another reliever for another period of time. Scott, it looks like Pete Fairbanks and Jason Adam are the top two candidates there. Who do you like more?

I like Fairbanks more. And I'm surprised he's not getting more traction in early drafts. I ranked him quite a bit higher than it seems like everyone. Maybe I'm a fool getting suckered in by late season trends. of the raise given the history. Like Peter Fairbanks, coming back from that injury, he looked

like an elite, elite, elite reliever, like high-end top-five type closer. I don't think he can be a top-five closer with the race, but I think he can be top 15. The old adage, draft skills, not rolls. Pete Fairbanks in 24 games this past season, 1.13-ERA, 0.67 whip. He was ridiculous.

Some injury concerns. We'll talk about that in just a little bit as well. next up we have the Toronto Blue Jays, Jordan Romano, no surprise there. White Sox, Liam Hendricks, Cleveland, Emmanuel Class A. For the Tigers, I guess it's Gregory Soto. Greg, of all the supposed closers, quote-unquote, closers, Gregory Soto is probably the scariest one to me.

Well, you remember last year I said I was on Team Fade to roll as Chapman. This year I am on Team Fade, Gregory Soto. I will not have them on a roster. I think Lang could make a push even though he's weird because he leads with his change-up, so it's kind of a goofy thing. But he had a tough stretch of Bapit, a couple of big blow-ups. But then at the end of the season, he righted the ship and was looking very dominant down the stretch. I think if he can just get his arsenal tightened up, he could be a very surprising pitcher in this bullpen.

And again, I really think the Tigers blew a chance to sell high on Soto. at the trade deadline. I really don't understand what they were thinking. But of course, that's why we have all new management structure there. There's a chance if he pitches well in spring, they would deal him, which would make sense.

Yeah. 5.1 walks per 9 last year for Soto and career 5.3. Never been less than five walks per 9 this season. That's tough to close like that. Yeah. His K-minus walk rate is below 10%, which is bad. It's pretty bad. He's a roller coaster.

Yeah. And they traded. Joe Jimenez is offseason two. So again, it looks like Alex Lang is the next one up there. For the Royals, we talked about it. Likely Scott Barlow. I know Greg, you've written about Dylan Coleman being a name to watch in very deep leagues. So we will do exactly that.

The Minnesota Twins, Scott, Jorge Lopez versus Yon Duran. Greg kind of talked about this to arbitration with Duran. Will they push him? I don't know. What do you think? Yeah, I was feeling pretty good about Duran just because Lopez was nothing short of terrible after joining the twins. So in 23 appearances with the twins,

Mary's lights out with the Orioles, been 23 appearances for the twins. Lopez had a 437 ERA, 1.63 whip, 7.1K per 9. Just completely lost it across the board, and didn't get a single save in September. The few, I think, Deron got a couple. And it was, you know,

it was basically like their roles flip-flop for that month, the final month we saw of the twins. But, you know, he makes a good point with the history of them wanting to keep saves totals down for salary control purposes. And that was Duran's rookie season. So he's still pre-arbitration. Greg has raised new doubts in me. I already had Duran outside my top 20, just behind Soto, actually. So I wasn't like, okay, he's the closer.

But I have him as the – and I'm not going to say he's – not the leading saves candidate for the twins, but I might move him outside the top 25 even based on Greg's thoughts. He's, he's the best reliever in that bullpen. I think we'll all agree on that. I will say scouts intimated that Lopez went through some personal things after the trade. You know, he like Hater had a child that was not doing great. So there were some health issues and other things that flare.

Everyone's human. You know, I don't think anybody's writing off Hater because he had a bad month. I mean, he went through a lot between the struggles with the birth of his child, being traded. And, I mean, there was, that's a lot to cave in on a person. And I'm hearing that some of those similar things affected Lopez. So there's a chance, hopefully that he will rebound. And, you know, I don't think he's as great as he was in the first half, but I don't think he's as bad as he is as he was in the second half. I think he's somewhere in the middle, which will be good enough for the twins to use them.

and then flip them if they're not in contention for the playoffs. All right. For the Astros, we have Ryan Presley there. For the Angels, great, good luck here. Carlos Estevez, Jimmy Hergett, Ryan Tepera. Anyone else you can come up with? I don't know. I'm leading Estevez.

I don't know. Again, the quotes. I mean, when he said, you know, he's on Twitter saying, you know, in an interview, oh, I think it'd be cool if I was the closer. We'll just look at the last two years on the road. He has an 18.7K minus BB, whereas when he was in Cores, the K-M-I-S-B-B was 6.9. So his K-M-I-S-B jumped by almost three times when he was not in course field.

Now, again, he's not a perfect pitcher, but I don't even be perfect. If he can be my last pick in a draft and he gets me 15 to 20 saves, I'm happy as bye. All right. Well, the Oakland A's got also a pretty fun one here. They just signed Trevor May over the weekend, who was not good last year. But the Oakland A's gave a reliever $7 million. That means something to me. They also have Zach Jackson.

They have AJ Puck, Danny Jimenez, Domingo Acevedo. Scott, take your pick. Yeah, you know, I hadn't considered the possibility of Trevor May closing when they signed him just because I've never considered the possibility of Trevor May closing. But you raise a good point. Between Zach Jackson, AJ Puck, Danny Jimenez, Domingo Acevedo. Acevedo was the one getting saves at the end of last season. and granted, a couple of those other guys were hurt,

I had no clue where to rank them, and they're all kind of bunched together outside my top 40 relievers. So I don't even know who I have ranked the highest of them. I think Zach Jackson, I have ranked the highest. He's great ground ball rate and good strikeout rate, just, you know, way too many free passes. So they're all pretty flawed. The A's aren't going to win many games.

I imagine they're going to be mixing it up all year. If you lean Trevor May over Zach Jackson, I wouldn't blame you. All right. For the Seattle Mariners, Paul Seawald, their Munoz. Greg, if you had to just choose one, who's your pick to lead the team and saves? To lead the team, unfortunately, I'll say Seawald. All right. For the Texas Marines.

I know, it's not what people want to hear. Yeah, I mean, you know, that's half the battle sometimes. You know, we talked about it with Duran. Like, you know, we wish most of the time that the best pitcher would be the closer, but it doesn't always work out that way. And I keep saying this time a year ago, we would have loved you to say. say Seawalt. So why are we complaining now? I know. And trust me, last year I was beating the drum. I had Munoz in my draft and hold. He was great. There was weeks I used them just for

strikeouts. I mean, there's still value in what he provides. It's just if you're taking him thinking he's going to get you 20 saves this year, it just might be misplaced. Believe me, I would love it. If they gave him full run, I'd be getting a Shersie and I'm all in. But, you know, I just don't trust them to do that. for the Texas Rangers we heard Greg kind of speculate that they could go out and make a trade for a closer if they wanted to

but Scott if they don't for now it looks like the leading candidates are Jose Leclerc Jonathan Hernandez Joe Barlow yeah and it was LeClerc at the end of last season so that's who I that's who I'd guess going into the season his salary well I guess he's this last year under salary right yeah yeah I'm going to say LeClerc

I say they waited until the last minute to pick up his team option. I like the last like hour. I was confused at the end of the year why they used Matt Moore twice in the last week of the season. He didn't pitch at all. So I'm hoping that was just a blip, but it was weird. So I don't know. Yeah. I mean, they don't have a lot of faith in Leclerc clearly. A lot of mixed messages there. More is gone now. So yeah, correct. Well, he's a free agent, but yeah. For the Atlanta Braves, we know that Kenley Jansen

left the team in free agency. Reisel Eccles, likely to be the closer for the Braves moving forward. For the Miami Marlins, we have a few names here. Dylan Floro was the closer at the end of last year.

They still have Tanner Scott. They have J.T. Chardua. Greg, I know something you like to say is friends don't let friends draft Dylan Floreau. Yeah, and I think Doug Dennis just ripped them apart on baseball HQ today too.

So, yeah, I think the Marlins closer may not be on the roster as is presently constructed. We'll have to see how all that shakes out, but whether it be trade or whether it be some other thing. But, yeah, I, if it's the way it's right now, I'll let somebody else have fun with this bullpen. I'll just, I'll let them have the headache. All right. The Mets, Edwin Diaz, no surprise there. The Phillies, Scott, Sir Anthony Dominguez, looks like he should be the guy. They still have Jose Alvarado, who throws really hard, but doesn't really have much control.

it's another one where like wouldn't surprise me if they want to bring in someone who's a little bit more proven but the way it's set up right now it's probably Dominguez. Dumbrovsky's a big spenda so it wouldn't surprise me either.

Yeah, I agree. I mean, they were also turning to Zach Eflin down the stretch and into the playoffs. It was kind of a three-headed into the game monster with Eflin included, but Eflin's now going to be a starter for the race so he's out.

I would lean Dominguez. All right. Next up, we have, Greg, I'll throw two your way. The Nationals and the Chicago Cubs. So you can have fun with these two. The Nationals, Kyle Finnegan, Carl Edwards, Hunter Harvey options there. For the Cubs, they just signed Brad Boxberger. They have Brendan Hughes, who ended the season as the closer.

Adbert Aalai. I know Cody Hoyer is working his way back from Tommy John as well. What do you think about the Nationals and Cubs? The Cubs, I would wait to Fab in season because I want to see what happens. I do, if they would use Aalai as a one-inning reliever, I'd be very intrigued because his arsenal would slot very well in a high-leverage role. And I do think Cody Hewer, if you can take them and wait until the second half, I think that could pay off as well. The Nationals, I just want to see Finnegan's another guy like Jansen. They were two of the slowest relievers in between pitches last year.

So I think the pitch clock, you know, Finnegan's not as big as Jansen. And he's another guy like Helsley. I was talking about another max effort guy, a lot of coil because he's not as big as these other relievers. So, you know, he had his uptick in the second half last year was because of velocity gains. But if he loses a little velocity because of the pitch clock, then we have to see how that affects his overall outcomes. Again, I could be reading way too much into it, but at the same token, I don't want to ignore it. So, I mean, Finn against the guy, but I wouldn't be surprised if at some. point Hunter Harvey gets a look there.

All right. For the Reds, Alexis Diaz ended the season as the closer, I guess, the brother of Edwin Diaz. I think he's super talented, Scott, but the Reds have kind of been a headache the past couple years. Lucas Sims and T.J. Antone are a few other names there to know. Yeah, I think, you know, it's hard to say this, but I feel like Diaz pretty much secured the role by the end of the season. and I mean he was clearly had the best numbers of anybody in that pen

and was the most reliable of anyone David Bell turned to so I actually have him ahead of Gregory Soto I'm 19th yeah I think that's fair too for the Brewers following the trade of Josh Hayter Devin Williams was the closer there for the pirates David Bednar assuming he's healthy I think should be the closer for them Greg if you had to choose who leads to Cardinals and save would you actually go with Helsley over Giovanni

Gallegos? Yeah okay how about for the diamondbacks We see a few names there. I guess they could also make a trade. They could look into something. I know they're trying to turn that team around, and they've got a lot of young talent that's coming up right now. As of now, they got Joe Mantiply, Mark Malanson,

Miguel Castro, Kevin Ginkle. What do you think? This would be another team like the Cubs where I'll most likely leave them for fabbing or wait right till the end. Like, you know, Daniel Bard popped up near the end of spring, and that's when he started getting drafted. Once it seemed like he was taking that role away from

Estevez and everything else. I think this would be another one. And again, you're into me. And you know, I just wrote about Miguel Castro in one of my Fortune 500 articles just saying he's only 27. I think we feel like he's 37 because he's been around so long. He's got that weird three-quarter slot, which doesn't always lend itself to being a closer. But he was 96 in average basketball velocity. And he's going to be working with Brent Strom, who helped turn around. I mean, Ryan Presley never had a K-I-S-B-B percentage of 20 or higher until he was introduced to Brent Strong when he went to Houston. And now he's done it five years in a row. So I think there might be a way that they increase his change-up usage and get more swing and miss out of him with that velocity.

He could be somebody that it might not start with him, but he could finish with it. All right. For the Rockies, we know Daniel Bard, likely to be the closer there. Scott, the Dodgers, they could look to make a move as of right now the way things are kind of set. up, Daniel Hudson does have closing experience. Evan Phillips was awesome for them last year. They also have Alex Vescia and Bruce Starr-Grattaroll. What's your lean here on the Dodgers? My lane is Daniel Hudson.

It's not with a lot of confidence, though. They didn't, I don't feel like they introduced, when they backed off Kimbril heading into the playoffs. They don't think they introduced an obvious error. And since they're such a forward-thinking team, it's possible they just mix a match. But if memory serves before Hudson got hurt, They were kind of talking him up as the closer, right?

And then they acquired Kimbril. Am I remembering that right? That sounds right, Greg. Do you have anything on that? They were, like, vacillating between him and Trinan, but yeah. Yeah. And then because, like, Trinning was the, was the hot thing last year. He burned me in one draft.

I took him as a second closer. Yeah, Trinin. Luckily, China got hurt first, right? And then Hudson got hurt? Is that how? I don't know. Yeah. It was an early draft, so I got stuck with Trin as my second.

closer, but luckily on that team, I was able to fad hellsley, so I, I saved grace there. But that's, you know, and we'll talk about this near the end now. You have to play your strengths with these closers. Like, I'm okay. If, you know, if I get my anchor and then a couple of my speculative picks don't pan out, I'm okay because I'm pretty comfortable, then I'm going to find somebody. But if you're not someone that's willing to put into work or you don't want to kick a couple dollars to my guys or recon, I mean, draft to your strength.

I mean, you've got to get with what you're comfortable with. What is my in-season strength? What's my in-season weakness and address those things? If you're always struggling with saves, then you have to change how you've approached them because it's not going to get any easier. Apparently my strength last year was drafting Jake McGee, so I think I need to find it.

I need to find a new strength, I think. For the Padres, Josh Hader, likely there, entering a contract year, and for the Giants, Camilo Duval. We don't have much time left, but we'll quickly run through Scott's early 2023 ranks, just kind of group these together in groups of five. One through five.

Edwin Diaz, Emmanuel Class A, Josh Hader, Devin Williams, Liam Hendricks. Again, that's Scott's top five. Greg, we'll start with you here. You spoke about what happened with Josh Hader last year. He was dealing with things off the field.

He had a 13-game stretch from mid-July through late August where he allowed 22 earned runs over nine innings pitch. That is a 22 ERA. Do you like him to bounce back here in a contract year? And do you like his replacement

in Milwaukee to, take over and potentially be a 30 save guy and Devin Williams? Yes, and I hope so. Devin Williams is weird because it seemed like he liked being Robin to Hader's Batman, if that makes any sense. He didn't pitch as well when he was the closer after the hate. And I know him and Hater were close and the team talked about being affected by it. And it had ripple effects through the clubhouse that kind of hurt them with the playoff run.

And so I want to believe in Devin Williams because this stuff is absolutely amazing. I just hope Devin Williams believes in Devin Williams. Would you take Liam Hendricks over him, Williams? Between those two, I probably take Hendricks, but it's really tough. That's the gaggle or I'm kind of drifting. Like I'm willing to take Hater, especially at his reduced price point, although it's already starting to tick up. otherwise I'll drift down into the Eglacius Jansen pool and just let it ride.

All right, but you're taking Hader over both Williams and Hendricks? Yes. Okay. Six or ten in Scott's reliever rankings, we see Spencer Strider, who again, Spark likely being drafted as a starting pitcher in Roto leagues. Then next up, we've got R. Reissela Iglesias, Felix Bautista, Jordan Romano, and Ryan Presley.

Ryan Presley, a name we haven't mentioned yet. How fickle are saves? Check us out. Presley had 26 saves. in 64 games in 2021, and then he had 33 saves in 50 games in 2022. It doesn't make sense, but this is just, this is what we have to do, year in and year out.

It's like trying to predict saves. It's obviously not easy to do. Scott, Reisel Iglesias was ridiculous with the Braves last year when he came over. I have a ton of faith in him. Same thing could be said for Felix Bautista. I worry a little bit about, you know, guys who rely on the splitter,

but he's got the high velocity, and I really like what I saw. How confident are you in this group? Yeah, very confident. I don't feel much worse about this group than I do the top five, and the price is going to be a lot better. So this is probably where I'm taking my number one relief pitcher. You know, there are question marks.

Batista obviously not so proven in the role. Presley hasn't been especially durable over the years. So there are reasons why they rank behind that top five. But when you're comparing the price tag, I'd rather draft from this group. All right, 11 through 15 in Scott's rankings, we see Kenley Janssen, Ryan Helsley, Camillo Doval, Paul Seawald, and Pete Fairbanks. Greg, let's talk about Pete Fairbanks because I know earlier Scott mentioned him. You started shaking your head.

It looks like you're kind of in on Pete Fairbanks. I brought up the numbers. He was awesome. The only concern is that he's dealt with a bunch of injuries recently, and he left his postseason appearance with numbness in his fingers, something we heard Brandon Woodruff dealing with earlier in the season as well. he got back on track and he looked fine, everything was good there. Hopefully that's the case for Pete Fairbanks as well. What are you thinking? Yeah, same deal.

I paid very close attention. So I subscribe to the Tampa Bay Times just to get the information on the raise because they're always someone I need to know about. And they did say, well, they speculated that they felt it was the Renaultz, which is the same exact thing that Woodruff had. I want to make sure it wasn't a thoracic deal. I mean, that's, you know, we don't want to, we don't want anything to do with the thoracic outlet syndrome.

and we want to make sure it was just Reynolds and it was just a bit. So everything's saying. So as long as I see him healthy and throwing in spring, yeah, definitely. As my as a second closer with upside, I love Fairbanks, especially at the reduced. And so this is where if you get yourself an anchor and then you want to take a second guy with upside, I think he's a very good play with where he's being taken presently in drafts. I took him as my second closer in the athletic mock and I was more than happy to do and I got him in that draft in like the 18th round or something ridiculous.

I mean, that's way late for a guy with this skill set and his K-minus BB was pristine. Yeah. Hey, that's music to my ears because that first draft that I did, I took Class A in the third round. I think I got Fairbanks in like the 14th, 15th round, something like that is. That's my second closer. Yeah, so I feel pretty good about it. 16 through 20, we see David Bednar, Daniel Bard, Scott Barlow, Alexis Diaz, and Gregory Soto.

Scott, David Bednar is, he's really good. The only problem is the pirates kind of stink. And, you know, he dealt with some injuries last year. But outside of that, performance-wise, I think when David Bednar's healthy, he's still going to be really, really good. Yeah, I think so. I do question the two things you pointed out, the durability and the team context. And so, you know, I probably need to lower Fairbanks.

These rankings are a little out of date. and I would probably put Fairbanks behind Bednar and Bard and Barlow and Diaz, keeping him in my top 20 still. But that's why I was initially inclined to rank Bednar behind because, you know, he's not, he has his own concerns. All right. Well, I did have some sparps here. I wanted to talk about, Scott, I don't know if there's any other that come to mind.

These are the ones that I found. Spencer Strider obviously is like the top of the top. and you take him in the fourth or fifth round of a points league. You're using them as a relief pitcher, and you have a clear advantage over everybody else. A few other names I noticed, Hunter Brown with the Astros, we just don't know if he's going to be a starter per se yet for that team. At some point, he will.

Yeah. So, you know, if you're really into Sparps and want to draft them and hold them regardless of whether or not he has a starting spot right away, I could understand that. The only other names that I found that actually scored points last year, Keegan Thompson with the Cubs, I don't think he's going to start for them. Garrett Whitlock, they're talking, the Red Sox are talking like they want him to be a starter this upcoming season. And Brad Keller, who's in the Royals rotation, but he is awful.

So you probably don't want to do that. Scott, any names that I missed here that you're excited about? It's a bad spark class. Garrett Whitlock would be the next one to draft. They've confirmed he's going to be in the rotation. And kind of mixed results when he got. got a chance to start last year, but they seem more committed to it this time. He's going to be doing it from spring training.

You know, he has a fair amount of talent. Not going to give you a lot of strikeouts, but will he give you enough innings and win potential that he'll be worth rostering all year in a points league? I think there's a pretty good chance of that. Let's see. Who else? You say Kikuchi is actually a spark, if you want to dip into that again. one you didn't mention

who I have ranked quite a bit higher is D.L. Hall. Of course, there's no guarantee. He's in the rotation. Hunter Brown will be a starter for the Astros eventually. I don't know that you can say the same for D.L. Hall because he has so many control and health issues. His future may be in relief.

But there's a chance he's in the rotation from the start of the season. in which case they'll be well worth drafting in a points league. Greg, I don't know if you know off the top of your head or if anyone you remember or if you've looked into this yet, but any sparks, anyone come to mind that we should be paying attention to for this upcoming season. Well, probably while borrowing with redstocks with how things have been going, it sounds like how might be in that conversation or at least as a bulk. He might end up being a multiple inning guy, but he can end up being one of those guys that vultures wins

because he comes in in like the fourth or the fifth and then gives you like two winning. and that arrangement. I mean, those are the guys that start coming into those sweet spots and grabbing those things. Like, you know, I'm the same way with D.L. Hall. It's like, what's going to be the role? Like, he only did relief last year. So what's his eligibility going to be? I assume Jeffrey Springs lost reliever eligibility.

Yeah, he did. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, someone's going to emerge and we'll just have to pay attention to those things. That's the fun part of all of this. But, yeah, Halk was the one guy that you guys didn't mention that I figured might be a factor at some point in this. All right. Well, we're going to wrap there. Once again, thank you to Greg Jewett. Make sure you follow him on Twitter. Actually, I didn't mention your Twitter, Greg. And now I need to pull it up at J. Jewett, Jewett, G. G, G, I should probably get this right.

G, Jewett, 9. G, J-J-E-W-E-T-T-9. Wow, spell that out five times fast. That's a lot of fun for you. The owner of Reliever Recon, again, if you want to support him, go to patreon.com slash reliver Recon. He is the closer expert for the athletic and, of course, contributor for Baseball HQ. Greg, thank you so much. We appreciate your time, buddy. Oh, thank you guys. I appreciate you guys do great work and you're, you know, one of the standards here. So it's always an honor to be with you. Hey, happy to have you on. Scotty, your last podcast of the year. Hope you enjoyed it, man. I did. You know, very Christmas, everyone. Yes, Merry Christmas. Happy holidays, everyone. Celebrating this week. Obviously, it's a pretty big week. We'll be back in a couple of days.

Got a fun exercise plan with the Welsh. Our friend David Mendelsohn will be on here as well. We're talking early ADP gifts for the Christmas season, the giving season. And so we will give you some of our favorite gifts early on here. We're going to wrap there for Scott and Greg. I am Frank. Thank you all for listening and watch Fantasy Baseball today. We'll be back again in a couple days. Bye-bye.