On a long enough timeline, your favorite fantasy baseball site would employ more academics than the Centers for Disease Control. Little did you know that it would be Razzball, home of the $1.99 soft tortilla ice cream salad (try it with ranch!). A propos of nothing happening in the real world, sometimes it’s the workers with no real defined role that ends up saving the day. You know the type. Bruce Willis in Die Hard. Ahnold in Predator. Neville Chamberlain in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
And maybe, just maybe, there’s a player out there whose name you’ve never heard of, ready to save your fantasy season.
Don’t believe me? Let’s play the anonymous statistics game, wherein I give you some stats and ask you to play Match Game with the owner. Just, you know, don’t match with Rodney Alcala.
| Player | 2024 Position Rank | IP | W-L | (SV) | K/9 | (Total K) | ERA | WHIP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Player A | RP10 | 94.1 | 7-2 | (8) | 7.35 | (77) | 2.19 | 0.78 |
| Player B | SP8 | 133 | 11-3 | (0) | 11.5 | (170) | 1.96 | 0.95 |
| Player C | RP7 | 80 | 10-4 | (10) | 11.14 | (99) | 1.91 | 0.85 |
Are you done salivating into your cup of noodles yet? Hopefully, you read my article last week and already know that Player B is none other than Paul Skenes, the top-ranked pitcher for 2025 and Grey’s #18 overall player for 2025 fantasy baseball.
The other two schmoes? Player A is Tyler Holton of the Detroit Tigers (current 2025 ADP: 445 overall). Player C is Ryan Walker of the San Francisco Giants (current 2025 ADP: 113 overall).
Put Holton and Walker together and you get 170 IP of 17-6 baseball with 176 Ks and an ERA and WHIP right around Skenes’. Say that again…Skenes’. Oh! And the Holker Franken-pitcher also netted a cool 18 saves on top of that. And what’d it cost you? Maybe $2 on the FAAB wire?
That’s the power of the Roleless Rob.
What’s a Roleless Rob, you shout from the back of the auditorium where you’re playing Path of Exile 2 and hoping I don’t notice.
Why, a Roleless Rob is nothing more than a pitcher who isn’t set in the Starting Rotation, and who isn’t the primary closer. Often, they may be the 6th starter, or a spot starter, or a long-reliever, or the 7th inning setup guy. They may be all of the above depending on the day.
But what unites the Roleless Rob is the notion that: A) they pitch good and do other things good too, and B) they are practically free on the waiver wire. It doesn’t take an unemployed government economist to know that the cost-benefit ratio is elite for these players.
A Role for Me But Not For Thee
The history of the Roleless Rob is somewhat coincidental. For longtime Razzball readers, you may remember that I was the Top 100 Starters writer from the time of Covid through 2023. To differentiate myself from Rudy’s Streamonator — which is great but reacts a bit slowly for some reader’s tastes — I created the Whiffonator, which was my weekly Top 100 Starters list.
But something really funny happened with the Whiffonator. You see, I didn’t give it a minimum Innings Pitched limit to start out. In fact, I didn’t even give it a position restriction to start out. The reason was that, at the time, I was really into DFS, and wanted to focus on unheralded players. You know, spot starters that cost like $4000 on Draft Kings but give you 12 Ks and a 1.00 ERA.
And what did the Whiffonator spit out as the top pitcher in May 2022? None other than Spencer Strider. But he’s the greatest thigh man on the planet, you shout through an elderberry slurpee. Indeed, he is. But he wasn’t always a starter. In fact, he started the 2022 season in the Braves’ bullpen, doing middle relief work. Thing is, Strider only has (had) two pitches. Popular sentiment is that two pitches is a reliever’s arsenal. So when the Whiffonator proclaimed that this guy who had 3 starts to his name was the top pitcher in the league, I leaned in, despite the laughter from the crowd. RotoWorld said to sell Strider when I was signaling “Buy, buy, buy!”
By the end of the year, Strider finished as SP25, although he was the most valuable player in the league on a per-start basis. In 2023, Strider claimed SP1 status for fantasy baseball while finishing fourth in Cy Young voting behind [stifles laughter] Blake Snell.
Sometimes, all we have to do is believe the data and let it play out. At least until internal brace surgery, that is.
Are Roleless Robs Worth It?
Obviously, it depends on format and your risk profile. In a 10-team mixed league with traditional scoring, you need classic fantasy baseballers who get Wins and Saves. In RCLs with Innings Pitched limits, Roleless Robs become saviors of teams that are bitten by the injury bug. In 15-team head-to-head leagues, Roleless Robs can be ERA and WHIP specialists that allow you to roster those lower-ranked starters who give you a Win along with a 4.20 ERA. Not so nice, eh.
Let’s take a look at last year’s Player Rater and find the Roleless Robs:
- Ryan Walker (RP7)
- Tyler Holton (RP10)
- Griffin Jax (RP11)
- Jason Adam (RP15)
- Luke Weaver (RP16)
- Cade Smith (RP19)
- Nick Martinez (SP37)
- Bowden Francis (SP53)
But EWB, you opine with a copy of the New York Post in your bioenhanced claws, a bunch of those guys are setup men. Sure. But only Jason Adam finished in the Top 10 of holds. And the league leader in Holds, Bryan Abreu, finished as RP65. Cade Smith finished with as many Ks as Abreu while have an ERA that was 1.20 points lower, and he was basically free in every league.
So yeah, when 30% of the top 20 relievers are randos off the waiver wire, I’d say they’re worth it. They’re just…really, really hard to find proactively.
Deploying Roleless Robs
It’s not like I’m sitting out here telling you to avoid starters and relievers because the next Spencer Strider is working long relief for the Rockies. There’s a ton of risk in using these guys because managers love to over-play the Roleless Rob. Long-time readers will remember when I gave the “all in” buy signal on Michael King when he was with the Yankees. A couple weeks after that signal he went down with a bum elbow and was shelved for the next year. Although, he did return to finish as SP16 last year, right? And sometimes getting in the spotlight just doesn’t work out. Matt Strahm as a reliever in 2023? 2.82 ERA. As a Starter in 2023? 4.05 ERA. Although I might add, his advanced stats as a starter looked great…enywhey.
Matt Strahm finished as RP21 last year, bee-tee-dubya. 6-2 with 3 saves, 1.87 ERA, 0.75 WHIP. Add that together with Paul Skenes and you’ve got 2024 Tarik Skubal.
The gist of Roleless Robs is that you’re filling a void. Like Grey mentioned in his writeup of Ronald Acuna Jr., you might need somebody for the first month to cover Acuna’s down time. When you’ve got a pitcher that’s down or especially volatile (stares at Sandy Alcantara), you can use freely available Roleless Robs to cover their absences or struggles. You want Spencer Strider in 2025? Sure. Draft him at cost, put him on the IL, and get Nick Martinez or some other wildcat to get you through the first part of the season.
And then when you come back on June 1 and say, “Oh no, Paul Skenes got tired and hit the IL with forearm tightness” and come asking for pitcher replacement advice from me, I’ll come back to this article. I’ll point to the top and say, “You want Paul Skenes plus a few saves? Let’s find you some Roleless Robs.”
Got any early drafts going? Let me know how they’re shaping up in the comments!
