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I only wish Madison Bumgarner fractured his hand after every single person drafted, because I knew I was never drafting him.  Terrible thing to say?  Perhaps, but I’m not the poor schnook who was still drafting him after I said for the last three months to not draft him.  I even put him in a tier originally in the top 20 starters that said, DO NOT DRAFT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.  Okay, not in that tall of a font, but the sentiment was all over that tier.  I said specifically, “This is just like the above tier, and I will be avoiding it, but rather than the above guys who I actually like, just won’t draft, I do not like the guys in this tier, and would never draft them at their price.  So, while I wouldn’t draft the above guys, I really wouldn’t draft these guys.  Got it?  Cool.”  And that’s me quoting me!  Of course, I can’t claim prescience that I knew he’d be hit by a comebacker, but will I anyway?  Hmm…  Why not?!  Prescience ain’t just a word on my Word of the Day calendar that I got in a Secret Santa!  So, I’ve dropped Bumgarner in the rankings, and adjusted his projections accordingly.  My Fantasy Baseball War Room gets updated on the reg, as well.

Anyway, here’s what else I saw in spring training for 2018 fantasy baseball:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

When does excessive SAGNOF’ing become a problem? Do you like go blind if you do it too much?  The winning number for steals is the number in question here.  Whether that be in RCL’s or your home league.  The amount of steals you think you need is based on your league.  Just telling you a number like it takes 62 steals to win a league period, end of story, would be a boring article.  So getting to that proverbial X number to win your league is that question here.  It is subjective based on league size, shape and scoring.  Leagues with smaller team numbers is obviously smaller and so on. Starting roster size plays into it as well.  So what is it enough for winning or finishing in the top-3 in your league in the steals category?  The main strategy to implore during your draft is to see who is going excessive for the steals. If a team comes out the gate and has one of the elite three (TT, Lin Miranda and Flash Jr.) you know what’s up.  After that, it is a step down in expectancy.  As those three are all projected to have 50-plus steals.  So finding a great medium for filling out your set team is important, don’t punt steals all together and don’t overpay for steals too early as they never have a face later in the draft.  So let’s see what the trick to getting you onto the podium for steals in most of your leagues…

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Holding off on info during the height of draft time is just not my M.O.  So I am bringing the goods and the reliever rankings a week earlier than anticipated.  Why go into battle with a water pistol when you can go with the boomstick?  At this point in the preseason, having a few teams with committee situations is normally a bad thing, except when you get to grab the right guy in that committee.  Having multiple draftable options from one team is more of a benefit than a detriment on draft day, because inevitably one person is going to be wrong in that selection process and it is usually the guy who gets drafted higher.  So looking at the situations with the White Sox, Rangers, Cardinals, and Diamondbacks as they sit today committee’s exist.  Whether we want to believe it or not, each team has no clear cut closer and if you are skimming, this is still a good thing.  Let someone else draft Gregerson, Soria, Parker, and Claudio.  While you can sit back and wait a few picks or even rounds and scoop up Leone, Jones, Bedrosian, and Kela.  As the season draws closer, this advantage will dwindle down to nothing, but for now use it to your advantage.  Miss out on a top 8-10 closer, no worries, load up on the maybe’s and possibilities and if they don’t pan out than you can easily pivot to a more useful option on the waiver.  So when someone says a committee is a bad thing, laugh and agree.  Then drop the quartet of save possibilities into your team and see what happens.  At worst they will cost you four out of your last seven picks.  At that point in the draft, you should have an established team with all starters in place and you would be gambling on reliever talent anyways.  Now you have the knowledge in your corner and a little bit of rankings goodness from ole’ Smokey.  The initial installment of the Closer report with rankings is here, get excited!

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Now to finish out the positional rankings for 2018 with my favorite: the relievers!  I may have went a little crazy here, 3000 words on closers and one stat fellas is just bonkers to think about.  I could have just used “save potential” and “hard hit percentage in medium leverage situations” about 40 times in my rankings, but I didn’t.  Ranking relievers is an ever changing game of robbing Peter to pay Paul scenario.  There are always going to be injuries and attrition, which lead to relievers getting changed and making the preseason rankings look stupid in hindsight.  Last year there were 40 relievers that garnered 10 saves or more.  Now, if you are keeping track, there are still only 30 teams so my previous sentence about replacement value in relievers is very true.  That is why handcuffs and secondary bullpen pieces on draft day are important, not only for saves but to help your cranky ratios that creep up from day-to-day.  This ranking is just based on relievers with potential for saves and how they will stack up in that department.  Holds post will be something separate and should be forthcoming, though you sure as hell aren’t getting 3000 words on Holds because I’d rather blow my brains out.  Still love the Holds game as much as, or even more than any other fantasy writer, just gotta temper expectations as not many other sites give you so much bullpen love as we do.  So enjoy the rankings of 2018 fantasy relief pitchers.  (It says 50 but I went ahead and did a little extra.)  Enjoy!

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Alex Reyes is the guy that’s going to be the difference maker on my points league teams this season. Well, except in any league where any of my opponents read this post. If I’m thinking outside of my “points league box”, he has the potential to make a difference in all fantasy formats this season. I see him as a mid-season sleeper that’s going to take up a roster spot for at least one or two before you have a chance to see if holding him will pay any dividends. This is a risk I am willing to take, and is one I’m recommending to the rest of you.

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As I sit here and awake from my winter’s hibernation, I search for and do only the essentials.  Gold chain, check.  I also tell myself that the transition from Fantasy Soccer to Fantasy Baseball will be as easy as riding a bike.  But you forget, I’m a bear.  Nonetheless, here we are fantasy folks and four female folkers.  Baseball 2018 is already in high gear with posts from the usual gaggle, and as always my contribution is at the back-end of ball games.  Namely saves, holds, and relief pitchers that have intrinsic mixed league value and individual league value heading into the draft stages of this new and bright year. So keeping it simple, I formed a chart that will be included it in every week’s post that will have the bullpen pictures of all MLB teams, updating it with every sleeper or bullpen post… because I am a giver.  That and who knows what will happen in the forthcoming weeks that may skew the dynamics of the bullpens around the fantasy world?  Once Grey starts doing his pitcher rankings, I will then drop my own rankings in  proper fashion.  Til then, sit back relax, ask questions about almost anything relating to bullpens or closers, as I will gladly be here as always for my ninth season here at Razzball.  So it is with pleasure that I can bring you the first bullpen related post of the year.  Individual closer and reliever posts are on the way. Enjoy!

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The season to date leader in holds heads to the DL and one of the better bullpens in baseball is in a tailspin… not so fast!  The Rockies have reliable arms that can cement games just as well as Adam Ottavino has done for the year.  With the likes of wily veterans in Mike Dunn, Chris Rusin, and even a little smattering of Jake McGee, the sedimentary bunch is going to attempt to hold down the fort. The comforting thing is that the Rockies lead MLB in holds as a pen, least amount of blown saves and have the most games pitching with a lead with 99 total.  The scary thing with the shoulder injury is that Ottavino is a stash, or a dash, and replace with new military holds parts made from recycled relievers.  Wait a week, see if the 10-day DL stint is a pain in the tuther end, and I can see if you need the space in Holds leagues, the move make sense.  I would most likely grab Dunn, Rusin, and McGee in that order, as the setup game in front of the Dutch Master is going to be pieced together differently than what we saw so far.  No need to panic though, there are tons of saves in the 6-8 innings to go around.  Speaking of which, let’s see what is going down in the neighborhood of hold-dom…

Please, blog, may I have some more?

What I particularly like about relievers is versatility.  The situation in San Diego is the one in particular I want to discuss.  We were all lured into the Carter Capps preseason love, and I was on the wagon driving the horses as well, but his injury and the results that we expected aren’t coming as fast as we hoped.  He isn’t bowling over anyone in the minors, sporting a 6-plus ERA, and the obnoxious K-rate hasn’t materialized.  Now onto the major league roster which isn’t lighting any fires.  They are second from the bottom in bullpen ERA, have only 12 holds on the year, and now their closer has hit the skids.  He being Brandon Maurer.  Enter who I think should, could be the next man up while we wait (forever) for Capps.  Brad Hand offers that former starter turned good.  I may just call him the Vigilante of holds and possibly saves very soon.  He has the K-rate, the BAA and the moxy to do the job… it is just a matter of if SD is ready to pull the trigger on something because Maurer looks cooked.  Regardless of his situation moving forward or your league perimeters, Hand is worthy for a spot because of speculation and the K’s that he will produce.  This is the bullpen report for this week, so let’s see what’s happening in the setup game and the hold chase…

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Some day somebody’s gonna make you want to turn around and say goodbye.  Until then baby, are you going to let them hold you down and make you cry? Don’t you know?  Don’t you know things can change, things’ll go your way, if you hold on for one more day.  

That music of genius was brought on by a smooth impromptu karaoke session in a West Boston saloon.  It was me and Ralph and a girl who was paid by the dollar to talk to us about her kid.  It’s all a true story.  Fun times were had, and at the time I didn’t realize how correlative the song was back then to this particular stat category and one that is by far my favorite to talk about.  Funny, it only took a Wilson Phillips song on the drive home from work to reminisce about Boston, Ralph, and relief pitching.  I love the stat, not everyone uses it, but I still love it nonetheless. If your leagues uses it, cool, well I will be your every other week destination for giving you the low-down on the hold situations going across the MLB.  So get comfy, with a week to go until Spring Training starts, and the full extent of the 2017 season yet to play.  You will get sick of me, in say… 30 weeks.  So get comfy on your favorite porcelain fantasy reading chair and welcome to a brand new year!

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On Saturday, we closed down the Holds store, although will still field some inventory questions that some may have.  Today is the last day only for my weekly advisory role in the cheap saves/steals-AGNOF type stuff.  This year was fun doing this post, it incorporated something I already covered here at Razznation and mixed it with some track and field with bats.  This year, I covered everything from the decline of stolen bases as a whole stat, the decline of the elusive fantasy 20/20 players, pitching metrics of stolen bases allowed, and even some catching metrics.  Wrap all that up and after I am done patting myself on my own back with my baby T-rex arms, I think I did an okay job for someone thrown to the fantasy wolves of conveying good info.  Some will disagree, others will hide in the shadows with their slings and arrows, but I am satisfied.  I stole Grey’s journal and he said it on three separate occasions that he thinks my penmanship in regards to SAGNOF is worthy of a cookie or something like that.  I was too teary eyed to actually read it.  So with just over one week to play, it is an “all hands on deck” affair for saves, stolen bases, or hell, even at-bats from non contending teams.  So when searching for moves to make and not make use the first instinct and ignore the other rules like don’t get high on you’re own supply stuff.  You know the Biggie song, so just ignore those and go with common sense.  As always, it has been my pleasure and good luck the last week of the year. Cheers!

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Greetings! Back at it again with the fresh Disgrace/Delight posts. Naaaaaaasty! We are here, my goodmen, to discuss the downfalls and risings of some of the most skilled athletes on this planet. I shall do my utmost to lock the derogatory comments in my cranium and not bestow them on the good readers of Razzball, for I am not here to offend, but to teach. I am not here to decry these talented young men, only to track their progress as professional athletes and root them on towards future glory and the type of massive wealth that peasants such as ourselves could truly never comprehend. Buuuuuuuuut, you’ve got to be realistic about these things. For I, favorite son of the Elder Gods, just can’t pass up an opportunity to roast a slap-dick hitting, noodle-armed throwing, ass shaving pansy, that would be better served mowing the lawn at Beddict manor, than being rostered in our fantasy lineups.

I am Tehol Beddict, and this Disgrace/Delight. Take heed!

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