Drafting For Holds In 2018: Relief Pitchers Tiered

The most important thing in fantasy baseball relief-dom in terms of holds is consistency. Without consistency of opportunities, of placement in the bullpen, and a team’s consistent success in utilizing their bullpen to your fantasy advantage… you get left out out in the cold when it comes down to accumulating a stout holds based relief pitching corps. Until there is a shift in the utilization of bullpens for the benefit of fantasy, more so, the leagues that use the hold stat. I will admit that I am more of an eye test person than a numbers guy. Numbers scare me. They prove too many things that don’t factor in the human error factor and the good ole eye test. So against my better mental state, I used numbers from the past five years to show that the bullpens are being used more frequently. Not just by some teams, but by all teams. I know, duh. This is something that we all eyed to be happening than Smokey goes in the opposite direction like a dyslexic salmon and gets some data to prove the incline of a stat that he holds so near and dear to his fantasy bear heart. Well sit back, relax, it’s going to be a fun ride on the holds bus this week as we do some research and than put the top-50 relief pitchers into hold tiers. Enjoy!

The 2018 Razzball Commenter Leagues are now open! Free to join with prizes! All the exclamation points!

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Bullpen Report: A Group Of Cardinals Is Now A Committee

August 18, 2017 | Closers, Middle Relievers | 4 Comments

by: Smokey

The inter-webs may something different, but I am here to learn you that it is going to be a committee instead of what the searched answer may be. It’s not looking fantastic for Trevor Rosenthal as he was pulled from the game on Wednesday with an injury and then sent home for further testing. So that leaves a “collage” of relievers chirping to get a shot and maybe a re-emergence of Seung-Hwan Oh. My guess is that it becomes a complete match-up based issue for their skipper Mike Matheny. (Name that I wanna hone in on here is Tyler Lyons though.) This, after all, is the bullpen report and he does, like the aforementioned names, pitch from the bullpen. Lyons, over his last 14 appearances, which coincidentally is after the last earned run he allowed, has pitched to the tune of a 0.00 ERA, 18 K’s (good for a 14 K/9), and only has allowed 2 hits and 3 BB’s, good for 5 baserunners against 44 batters faced. If you don’t have a calculator watch handy, that is a .032 batting average against. So in laymen’s terms, he has been awesome. It is the holds post for the week, so he had 5 of those to boot. Hot teams, breed hot bullpens. It is a fact. Chasing holds, find a team that is over .600 in win percentage over the last 15 games and roster any guy that is in the pen that sees leverage situations. Returns will come. Advice and morale of the story given, now onto some other factoids of deliciousness for the week in bullpen/holds news. Cheers!

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Bullpen Report: August Job Swap

August 4, 2017 | Closers, Middle Relievers, SAGNOF | 11 Comments

by: Smokey

The trade deadline usually makes a real hash out of bullpens, and this year was no different. Closers become just ordinary relievers. Ordinary relievers become closers on teams punting. Even further down, the holds through the obtuse guys now become a usable commodity. Fantasy baseball with hold leagues, catch the spirit! So like I was just saying, we have seen 5-6 teams rip apart their pecking order for hold-dom, and in some cases muddle up the closer order by trade, attrition, or subtraction. This is a good thing, makes decisions easier. Aim for guys on teams that are still getting you save opportunities. If you can’t find the stat, always fall back on the standings to guide your waiver wire hand. Or even more finite, look at that teams W/L record over the last 10 games. It is no coincidence that the top three teams in save opportunities since the All-Star break have winning records (Dodgers, Mariners, and Blue Jays). Also, if you haven’t been streaming Holds yet this year, there is no better time than the present. The list of holds leaders over the last 15 games is littered with names that weren’t even in print by me for the whole year. So don’t be afraid to roster the unknown rather than a commodity because with the season basically over in six weeks (three if you have playoffs), every one counts and every H2H win counts. Cheers!

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Bullpen Report: 52 Reliever Pick-up

July 21, 2017 | Middle Relievers | 18 Comments

by: Smokey

This is the best time of the year, next to when Shark Week is on TV. All the movement in real baseball sends a ripple throughout the fantasy universe and in most position player cases, the player is owned to the moon or already a contributor. Not so much in the realm of baseball’s forgotten warriors: the setup men. As teams scramble for bullpen help, it creates an everlasting (not really forever) waterfall effect that resonates to the new and old team. Take for example the Yankees/White Sox trade it has created job questions for five separate relievers: Betances, Robertson, Kahnle, Clippard and Swarzak. Now with all the hype surrounding trade rumors, it is best to identify the team who gets the bullpen help first, than the trading team second. Because the trading team usually is where the goodies are at. Anthony Swarzak looks to be the biggest beneficiary in the setup options, and yes, Clippard will be closing, but Swarzak will be there when Clippard gets dealt again whether it’s before or after the non-waiver trade deadline. So to summarize here, be speculative but not crazy. Pay attention to the reliever deals in place and realize that some pitchers get moved down a few pegs, but on the reflexive, some move up. Have at some juicy reliever tidbits, Cheers!.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

RCL Draft: What’s That Odor? Rougned!

March 31, 2017 | Our Leagues | 690 Comments

by: Grey

I’m trying an experiment. I’m writing this opening lede before the actual draft. I wish there was some way to timestamp this, but you’ll have to take my word for it. *cracks knuckles* Here we go! Ooh, Tehol grabbed Dominic Brown! Wow, he must be expecting a bounce back, or Dominic Brown is his daddy. Like a teamster painter, I’m leaning on the latter. Damn, Rappin’ Ralph grabbed Benintendi, Manuel Margot, and Roman Quinn? Rookies are his ‘Bud Fox’s Bluestar.’ Oh my God, Rudy grabbed three catchers! (I had an advantage predicting this one, because I knew Rudy was autodrafting due to a family obligation.) Jay grabbed Chase Headley with the 5th round pick and R.A. Dickey in the 7th! In the chatroom, Malamoney asked how many points a home run gets in this league? Yes, of course, he did! JB drafted Joe Ross, then called me on speakerphone from an internet cafe where WHERE ARE YOU NOW?! is playing. MattTruss drafted…Actually I don’t know what Truss will do, which has me worried. Stupid wild cards! And, of course, I drafted Rougned Odor. Boy, that was a fun draft, and Tehol only timed out on his picks three times trying to get his Periscope thing to work. *reading back what I wrote after the draft* Well, I got the Odor part right. Anyway, here’s my thoughts on our RCL draft, it’s a 12-team, mixed league:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Bullpen Report: 2017 Holds Rankings

March 3, 2017 | Closers, Middle Relievers | 58 Comments

by: Smokey

A funny thing happened on my way to work today, I sat there in my favorite sitting place and did some research. I looked at the availability of information provided by the other experts in the world of fantasy baseball, and then correlated that to what I do best. That, my friends, is bullpens. We as a collective fantasy universe play in leagues with the illusive yet sultry stat category known as the Hold. In fact, in some further research that I have done, an estimated 30% of all fantasy players play in a league with some sort of Hold associated with the final outcome in the standings. I mean, 30% is basically like winning the popular vote. [Jay’s Note: I love you Smokey.] But I am standing here aghast at the amount of research poured into this fantasy industry by experts all around the world, yet here I sit. Giving you the most diverse, in-depth, informative (yet funny), and groundbreaking stat analysis that not even world-wide leaders give… for free might I add. I love me some bullpens, and if you don’t play in a league that adds diversity to the game to include them, then maybe you should down shift a bit and give it some thought and do a league that includes it. Don’t do it for me, do it for yourself. Because this way I gain, at least one reader from each person that does it. Go search the inter-webs for holds type information, you get a column sorted catastrophe written by some intern who doesn’t know the difference between good and well. So stay here my friends, I am the goods through and through. I dropped the Holds chart weeks ago and now you get just straight cheddar and some rankings.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Bullpen Report: Hold On For One More Day

February 8, 2017 | Closers, Middle Relievers, SAGNOF | 43 Comments

by: Smokey

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!

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Bullpen Report: Everyone Do The Bullpen Shuffle

August 13, 2016 | Closers, Middle Relievers | 12 Comments

by: Smokey

The holds leaderboard has been basically demolished as guys have switched roles. Three out of the top-10 holds guys (Bettances, Herrera, and Watson) currently are holding down the closer roles for their respective teams. Add in two more from the top-20 (Andrew Miller and Ken Giles) and you can see that 20% of the entire holds leaders are double dipping in stats. Not always a bad thing, but when you are counting on one stat from a guy and then it switches to another, it detracts from the previous. Have no fear, because the bullpen aficionado is here to steer you through the muck and mire that is the bullpen shuffle. So for this week, we are going to look at guys who aren’t in a closing role. I have taken current closers out of the equation for the chart, because this is a holds piece and we don’t want “their kind” infiltrating the holds stuff. So be active on the waiver wire as we come down to the end of the season, there should be no commitment in the relief game.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Closer Report, Week 13: My Father The Fish

July 2, 2016 | Closers, Middle Relievers | 29 Comments

by: Smokey

So this year, like so many before, the closer trade market is always an interesting cocktail mixer of events that shake things up. The Padres waited to be first, which makes zero sense… but also makes total sense. A conundrum wrapped in bacon as they traded Fernando Rodney to the ever more deadly bullpen in Miami. He will not be closing there, but will basically make that bullpen just deeper and taking value away from great holds guys on the year in David Phelps and Kyle Barraclough. Rodney brings his glistening 1 earned run on the year, to a situation behind the Marlins closer A.J. Ramos, who hasn’t blown a save to date. So now the ramifications don’t just stay with the Marlins, their bullpen is solid. The Padres, however, are like the movie Thinner, a cursed bunch of unprovens, which is sometimes good and bad. Ryan Buchter is the first guy up, as he has carved out a decent set-up niche there. After that, it is a bunch of Quacks, Villas, and BM’s. Buchter has the K-rate, just not the pedigree… yet, to be a closer. He has the job as they say in fantasy, which is better than being fantasy homeless or unemployed. So Buchter is the add. Maurer and Quackenbush are on ready five. Here what else is happening in the game of final bosses. Have a safe and Happy 4th of July weekend!

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Flaunt Your Power And Buy The Judge

July 1, 2016 | Fantasy Baseball Buy/Sell | 439 Comments

by: Grey

At some point soon, the Yankees have to say to themselves, “Are we this stupid of an organization? We have a guy that is doing The Mashed Potato in the minors. Look at this…” Then a pile of balls that Aaron Judge hit are piled on the table, but instead of balls, they now look like mashed potatoes with stitches weaving throughout. “No, we didn’t have Lyle’s mom from accountant make a very long string of maraschino cherry stems tied together with her mouth. Those are baseballs with stitches that have been mashed by Judge.” One younger exec picks at a piece of mashed potato-baseball. “Stop picking at your food and eat it!” The young exec puts a piece of gummy baseball into his mouth. “I was kidding, you fool, it’s a baseball! You don’t eat that!” This has to happen soon. Aaron Judge is not getting any younger. Unlike me, I was 35 last year, and am 27 this year. Right now, he’s 24 years old and crushing pink cookies in Triple-A. The Yanks are nine games back and Tokyo drifting. No one on their team is young. Best move for them is to trade everyone or start benching guys to play Judge. Oh, and why do we care? Because Judge has Giancarlo-type power. He could hit 15 homers in a month. Fo’reallies. I have him stashed in one 12-team league, and I’d stash him in any league where I needed power. His time is nigh! Which sounds like something a Nazi would say, but it just means near. Anyway, here’s some more players to Buy or Sell this week in fantasy baseball:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Razznasty League Update: The Exodus

June 2, 2016 | Our Leagues | 56 Comments

by: Geoff

Throughout my time as a dynasty player, I’ve learned that there’s one thing that’s as inevitable in this format as death and taxes….. turnover. Sometimes it’s simply because a manager no longer likes the format or league. Sometimes it’s a lack of the time element that needs to be applied to properly compete. Other times it’s an incident that disenfranchises owners, and leads them to quit. Well over the last month I’m pretty sure all of these apply to outgoing managers within our Razzball in-house dynasty the Razznasty. There’s been drama, tears, a gang-related shooting, and an arm wrestling tournament in a truck stop. Actually I think I’m confused, all those things happened during my Memorial Day weekend with my in-laws. You know what they say, “sometimes you join the Hell’s Angels, and other times you marry into them”. Moving along, let’s discuss the standings, trades, and wavier claims for the month of May.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

No Cracks In This Win Shields

May 13, 2016 | Uncategorized | 327 Comments

by: Rudy Gamble

Big Game James went into Milwaukee and clinched at least a 16 win season for the Padres. Clutch!

This was a flashback Shields start – 7 IP, 9 K, 1 BB, 0 HR. I thought the NL would extend his fantasy acehood a little longer – like it did for Jon Lester and his fried chicken and beer buddy, John Lackey – but Shields’ BB and HR rates spiked insanely last year.

The HR rate (a near league-leading 1.47 HR/9 IP) was due to regress a bit (now around 1 HR/9 IP) but his BB rate is still 3.6/9 which relegates him to streaming in shallow leagues and an Ian Kennedy-like SP4/SP5 in 15-team leagues. If he could regain his control, he has a shot at a 3rd act as a KaBoB.

So Grey handed me the roundup keys on a short slate Thursday. I’m so excited. I’m so scared. I’m so tired (I’m shocked Grey hasn’t moved to Hawaii yet so he doesn’t have to write at night). I asked him to return the favor and give me a title and all he came up with was, “Brooke Shields Is Handsome” and “The Shields Start Was RiChiklis”. Oy.

Please, blog, may I have some more?