Fantasy Players to Target: Relief Pitchers

Given the risk with relief pitchers, you don’t want to draft a closer who will combust this year. Additionally, there are some nice sleepers out there who could emerge and grab the closer job at some point in 2016. Here are some relief targets for you to consider.

Cody Allen, Indians
There isn’t much disagreement about the top tier of relievers entering 2016. With Aroldis Chapman faded because of the 30-game suspension, Wade Davis, Craig Kimbrel, and Kenley Jansen are the consensus top three. It gets pretty murky from there, with another seven closers being selected between the 88^th and 104^th picks, according to NFBC ADP data. On the one hand, it’s not terribly instructive to quibble with ordering when the second tier is so tightly clustered; on the other, it’s difficult to understand why Cody Allen is the last name inside the top 10.

Among relievers who pitched 40 or more innings in 2015, nobody was better by FIP and only Andrew Miller, Jansen, Dellin Betances, and Chapman were better by cFIP. Allen’s 34.6 percent strikeout rate was the best of his career and sixth best in the league (again, 40 IP minimum), trailing that same quartet plus Kimbrel. If there’s a knock on the performance Allen can control, it’s that he’s still walking more than three batters per nine innings, but the 3.25 BB/9 mark he achieved in 2015 was a career best. The real thing holding Allen back from being considered a truly elite fantasy closer is a gaudy save total. He converted 34 last season for a team that finished with 81 wins but whose second and third order winning percentages indicate something more like a 93-win club, third-best in the American League. PECOTA likes the Indians for 93 wins in 2016, and other projections, while not quite as optimistic on the raw total, also see them as the class of the CAL entral. If Allen can push for 40 saves and replicate the underlying skill he showed in 2015, he should sit atop the second tier, if not push his way into the back of the first. —Greg Wellemeyer

Dellin Betances, Yankees
Betances is currently the 22^nd relief pitcher being taken in mixed-league drafts. Betanaces is currently the 82^nd pitcher being taken in mixed league drafts. In mixed leagues last season, Betances was the 28^th-most-valuable pitcher. In mixed leagues last season, Betances was the 77^th-most-valuable player (pitcher or hitter).

It is pretty safe to say that Betances is being severely underdrafted. Everyone knows Betances is great, so why is he being undervalued? My theory is that Betances is getting undervalued because the value he provides is more difficult to imagine. It is easy to imagine how a 200-plus strikeout pitcher will help is climb in the rankings. It is easy to imagine how a 30-plus save reliever can get us from eighth in the saves category to third in the saves category. It is much harder to imagine what the impact of a handful of wins, a handful of saves, 120-plus strikeouts, and 70-or-so innings of excellent ratios will benefit our team in the different rotisserie categories. Because it is hard to imagine, people are shying away and taking pitchers who provide a more imaginable impact.

That said, let us endeavor to take advantage of this trend. Betances has been worth a few spots in each ratio category and in strikeouts (Betances ranked 74^th is strikeouts amongst all pitchers last season) and that has been a benefit that has been greater than all but 70-80 players in each of the last two seasons. Ultimately, Betances is a likely top-100 player who can be had in the 150-200 range and those are the types of bargains that do not present themselves too often. —Jeff Quinton

Liam Hendriks, Athletics
A savvy offseason trade acquisition by the Oakland front office, Hendriks came out of nowhere (well…Triple-A Buffalo to be exact) to emerge as one of the most dominant relievers on the planet with the Blue Jays in 2015. The eye-popping statistics speak for themselves. By cFIP, a predictive pitching metric, the (now) 27-year-old finished as a top-15 reliever (minimum 50 innings pitched) last season.

In an October interview with David Laurila, the Aussie credited offseason Pilates with his wife as the main catalyst behind the dramatic velocity spike that sparked a transformation from mediocre starting pitcher to elite bullpen weapon virtually overnight. The metrics needed to measure the impact of pitchers core strength are still in the embryonic stages of development, so we can’t confirm Hendriks hypothesis just yet. However, the substantial increase in average velocity (not just with his fastball, but his entire repertoire) was no mirage.

As former BP staff writer Chris Mosch expertly uncovered in his late November analysis, another major key for Hendriks was the evolution of his slider, which became a much deadlier weapon last season:

“In 2015, Hendriks buried his slider low and out of the strike zone more consistently than he had in the past, with fewer sliders left over the heart of the plate…The result was a slider that drew whiffs at an above-average rate for the first time and suddenly started generating grounders nearly 60 percent of the time opposing hitters put it in play. His slider went from being a below-average pitch to a weapon he could lean on late in counts, an improvement even more impressive when you consider he nearly doubled his use of the offering in 2015 compared to 2011-2014.”

Given the checkered injury history of veteran “proven closers” Sean Doolittle and Ryan Madson, who figure to get the majority of the save chances in Oakland (if they avoid the disabled list) this season, scooping up Hendriks as a speculative flyer in the final round of deeper mixed leagues could pay huge dividends. The skills are unassailable and the raw statistical results have been even more impressive. If he gets a crack at the ninth inning, it may not be long before Bay Area sportscasters adopt the phrase: “Hendriks: Australian for closer.” —George Bissell

Arodys Vizcaino, Braves
Although relievers are just as confusing as they’ve ever been in the fantasy world, they are becoming more and more important in the real world. Because of this, there seems to be a greater sense of urgency in acquiring relievers in fantasy drafts this year, with 10 closers going in the top-100 picks according to fantasy pros. The late-round picks still make the difference here, and looking through that list, Arodys Vizcaino’s name really sticks out to me.

For full disclosure, I should mention that I was among the lowest on him until late last year. This was a case of me putting too much stock into his early-career numbers, most of which came in his age-20 season. He didn’t pitch a full season last year, but he was incredibly impressive. Vizcaino struck out about 10 batters per nine innings while keeping his walk rate to 3.5 per nine. That helped him pitch to a 1.60 ERA, which was obviously affected by small sample size noise in his 33 2/3 innings, but was also backed up by a 2.51 FIP, a 3.35 DRA, and an 86 cFIP. Arguably most importantly, he pounded the zone over half of the time and induced swings on pitches out of the zone almost 30 percent of the time, helping to ease the worry over his control issues from early in his career.

Now, there are certainly some issues here as well. Jason Grilli could start the year ahead of him on the depth chart, for one. However, Grilli is coming off of an injury and is no guarantee to hold the job for very long even if he does start the year as the closer. While he waits for the job, he’ll help out with your ratios, too. On top of that, Vizcaino is on a bad Braves team that will lose a lot of games. None of that justifies him going as the 30th reliever, which he is per Fantasy Pros. That puts him in the range of good setup men like Darren O’Day and Luke Gregerson, as well as the closers many of us expect to lose the job sooner rather than later like Steve Cishek, JJ Hoover, and David Hernandez. All relievers are a crapshoot, so when you’re picking at that range I’d go with the young power arm coming off his best season. —Matt Collins