Rolling In The Deep: Comically Early Bullpen Dart Throws

I’ve been thinking about relievers a lot lately and how the right or wrong ones have helped or hurt my teams in 2025. This week, we’ll take it a step further based on an idea from our friend and frequent commenter Jolt In Flow. He suggested a column about under the radar, deep league relievers who might have a shot at saves next year if everything breaks right, so here we are. When I thought about who I might have mentioned in this context last year at this time, versus who I actually drafted, versus who actually ended up with some saves, I learned one thing: future closers are really, really difficult to predict. Like, really difficult to predict. Let’s throw out a few names anyway, based on a set of criteria that I’ve just come up with. First, we’ll have some general thoughts about relievers and closers, predictions, and the surprising paths some players take to saves or the lack thereof.

• I’ve figured out something that doesn’t really work, at least not with any more consistency than the other reliever dart-throwing that we’re talking about this week. That would be trying to figure out now who the setup man will be on the teams that will be out of it next July, and who’ll be elevated to closer when the closer is traded. Or, conversely, who not to draft because he’s a closer on a rebuilding team and will likely become a setup man for a better team next summer. This was one of the weirdest trade deadlines ever for closers, and I think that would be true with just the Yankees alone. Did we really think Devin Williams, Luke Weaver, David Bednar, and Camilo Doval would all be on the same team in August? Or that Mason Miller (drafted as the first closer off the board in several of my NFBC leagues) and Ryan Helsley would be set up men? Meanwhile, the mediocre Kyle Finnegan finally got traded from the Nats at the deadline, only to end up with a first place team… where he somehow continued to get saves before he got hurt.
• As an extension to the point above, a lot of in-contention teams are using the closer-by-committee approach, whether or not they acknowledge it and whether or not they want to. Besides the Tigers example above, Arizona and Texas are the two most extreme examples of this. The D-Backs had an eye-popping fifteen relievers with at least one save this year, eight with two or more saves, and no pitcher with more than five. The Rangers had seven players with at least one save, five with two or more, and have no player with more than nine right now.
• One of the reasons it’s hard to predict closers is that anyone who throws hard enough to fall into the “future closer” category has a pretty decent shot of getting hurt. Last year, I would have put Ben Joyce on this list, for example, but didn’t draft him because I was worried about his health. Time will tell if he gets healthy and emerges at some point as the end-of-game type guy he seemed like he was getting groomed to be, but for this year, my random dart throws found more saves than Joyce did.
• Opportunity is murky. We’ve had our eye on Orion Kerkering as a closer of the near future for a couple years now, so why wasn’t this the year? The two guys ahead of him on the depth chart, Jordan Romano and Jose Alvarado, went down in (different but equally spectacular) flames early. Kerkering, though, still checks in with just 4 saves on the year after the Phillies made one of the splashier deadline moves by adding Jhoan Duran to the back of their pen.
• Good old fashioned closer handcuffs can work if injury strikes, if you pick the right ones. If you rostered Bryan Abreu or Abner Uribe, it worked pretty well to just plug them in when Josh Hader and Tylor Megill went down. We may head into next year with some similar, theoretically clear handcuffs, like Matt Brash for Andres Munoz.
• One thing that closer trust from MLB managers seems to boil down to again and again is guys who’ve done it before. This is obviously not a new insight, but it’s what led me to roster a guy like Emilio Pagan at the end of a 50-round draft back in February. The 9 saves that he got under his belt in 2022 were enough to put him on my RP flier list, despite the fact that he seemed pretty well buried on the Reds closer depth chart at the time.

For this list, we’ll look at numbers since August 1st, and will automatically eliminate guys with 5 or more saves since they are a little too ‘on the radar’ for our deep league thoughts. (For those interested, since this is kind of an intriguing group looking ahead on its own, I think, this requirement weeds out Cade Smith, Keegan Akin, JoJo Romero, Dennis Santana, Shawn Armstrong, Victor Vodnik, Andrew Kittredge, Jordan Leasure, Riley O’Brien, and Will Vest). I’m also going to avoid the Cubs’ pen altogether as it’s particularly hard to predict in my opinion, since the Daniel Palencia injury, though shout out to Brad Keller in addition to Kittredge as mentioned above. I’ll also avoid the Marlins, who have no fewer than four players with two or more saves since August 1st. Most of them haven’t pitched very well, though Calvin Faucher (who has three saves) has, and I guess I’d call him the presumptive closer heading into 2026 for now?

Since many a manager seems to prefer “high leverage experience” (as in our Pagan example above), sometimes even over “great pitching,” we’ll focus on that for the names to follow, but try to incorporate a little of that great pitching as well. So, since August 1st, each of these guys has A) some interesting combination of saves + holds + wins, B) a WHIP under 1.05, and C) a K/9 of at least 7. (Note: I’m including wins here only because, if nothing else, I’m hypothesizing that it shows that these guys were likely brought into a game in a tie or close situation where a manager would go to one of his most trusted relievers.) So, here we go with our deep league saves dart throws for 2026:

Phil Maton. Maton looked to be in the saves mix in post-Hesley St. Louis before getting traded to the Rangers’ ultra-fluid bullpen, and has definitely thrived in Texas. I’ve kept him around in a few deepish leagues, since even though he’s not closing, he’s been doing just enough to be an asset to my pitching staff. Since August 1st, he has an ultra-impressive K rate among other things, with 29 punch outs in 18.2 innings. He also has three wins, two saves, two holds, and a WHIP under one. There’s value there if he can keep it up, depending on his situation next season, and if he somehow finds himself with save opportunities, all the better.

Clayton Beeter. Jose Ferrer has done a pretty stellar job of closing since the Nationals finally unloaded Finnegan, as he has nine saves, averages about a strikeout an inning, and a 1.93 ERA/1.125 WHIP since the first of August. Beeter, who came over from the Yankees in the Amed Rosario trade, still makes this list, though, as he’s managed to make a ripple on the deep league reliever pool even while Ferrer has shone. Speaking of impressive K rates, Beeter has 28 strikeouts in 19.1 innings since August 1st himself. He also recorded his first major league save over that time, picked up six holds, and pitched to a WHIP of 0.98. The path to the back of a major league bullpen may be cloudy for him at the moment, but his solid late-season pitching and the fact that he converted even one high-leverage opportunity into a save likely haven’t gone unnoticed.

Matt Svanson. Svanson is the only player on this list without a save since August 1st, yet I remain intrigued. He does have two wins and four holds for the Cardinals over that time period, so he’s definitely been in the thick of things in terms of high-leverage bullpen usage. I should take a moment to point out that we’re not talking about the youngest of arms here, as Svanson is 26. Is that necessarily a bad thing in this context, though?  In looking at some of the names that emerged at the end of this year as saves-gatherers, I’m realizing that youth isn’t always a positive when it comes to saves prediction. This, of course, would make sense given how important experience continues to be to major league organizations on the back-of-the-bullpen front. Anyhow, Svanson has 36 Ks in 26 innings pitched since August 1st, and his WHIP over that time, as well as on the season overall, is under one. If he can continue to build on his experience, he feels like a guy who could be in the thick of things one way or another at some point next year.

Hunter Gaddis. Gaddis has just been a really, really good setup man, which is likely his ticketed role for next year as well. He’s a guy that I could see stepping up if the opportunity arises, though. Since August 1st, he has two saves, a win, and a hefty eleven holds, pitching ahead of Cade Smith in a (presumably forever) Emmanuel Clase-free Cleveland. Gaddis’ numbers have been solid if not spectacular across the board all season: 65 Ks in 62.2 innings, with a 3.16 ERA and a 1.18 WHIP.

Hogan Harris. Harris has three saves since August 1st for the As, as well as a win and two holds. Maybe it’s naive of me to include him and omit Sean Newcomb (who has 2 saves) from this list, especially given what I just said about youth not necessarily being a good thing in this case. In addition to being 32, though, Newcomb just feels like a guy whose chance at closer glory will be confined to right now… We’ll see. Harris’s WHIP on the year is an ugly 1.45, but it’s under one since August 1st, and he’s allowed just a single earned run over that time. Harris is 28 himself, but he has a good — and super easy to figure out — K rate, with 58 in 58 innings this season. If he continues to close out the season in impressive fashion, he may ping my deep league radar come draft season.

Well, after writing this up, I see that both Gaddis and Harris added saves to their ledgers on Thursday afternoon, which is another reminder that checking box scores over the tail end of the season might provide a boost of last-minute information heading into next season. You could clearly add dozens of names to this list, so feel free to do just that if you wish… that’s why we call them dart throws!

Thanks again to Jolt for the article idea, and happy last week and a half of the regular season to all!