Closing The Book: A Guide To Drafting Relief Pitchers

Aug 7, 2014; Pittsburgh, PA, USA; Miami Marlins relief pitcher Steve Cishek (31) pitches against the Pittsburgh Pirates during the eighth inning at PNC Park. The Pirates won 7-2. Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports

For the past 11 years, I have participated in a head-to-head league with a fairly expanded scoring system. Rather than a traditional 5×5 league, we have worked our way up to now 8×8.

While the scoring categories are a bit more expanded than a traditional league, the categories themselves are pretty straightforward.  On the pitching end of things, we score innings pitched, wins, losses, saves, strikeouts, walks, ERA, and WHIP.

With an even number of categories on offense and pitching, a strong and balanced draft is important, since you do not want all offense and weak pitching or vice-versa. But looking closer at the pitching categories, I have developed a pitching strategy that has helped me to place in the money several times.

In my head-to-head league, I always, without fail, draft my relief pitchers with my last picks of the draft. I fill the entire offense, starting pitchers, and bench before I even consider a relief pitcher.

My fellow players sometimes think it is nuts and that I am crazy for sticking to it so strongly. But results speak for themselves, and I am in no hurry to change. Since this is kind of an open secret in my league, I have no problem sharing the strategy with our readers here at FBCJ.

First, it is important to know why I choose to draft this way. The main factor is our scoring – out of the eight pitching categories, only one (saves) is directly impacted by relief pitchers, most often closers. How many innings per week is a reliever going to contribute to a match-up? And since the sample size is so small, how big of an impact will he have on ERA or WHIP?

In the counting stats, one bad inning full of walks will hurt more than striking out the side would help. Why would you devote prime draft real estate to a one-category player? To me, sacrificing ever winning the saves category in exchange for an extra starter who can have a greater impact on the other pitching categories is the smart play.

“But Bryan, if you don’t draft relief pitchers until the end of your draft, you will never get an elite closer! Why would you do that? Who are you going to end up with?” Good question! Sure, it’s true that waiting until the final rounds means you won’t land Craig Kimbrel, Greg Holland, Trevor Rosenthal, or anyone of that ilk. But as I said above, a closer truly affects only saves.

Let’s examine this with a tangible example. The manager in our league who drafted Kimbrel finished the year with a total team ERA of 3.13. Not too shabby, but if you remove Kimbrel’s stats, the team ERA raises to a whopping 3.18. Five hundredths of a point is not worth a high draft pick, is it?

Replacing Kimbrel with a hypothetical closer who allowed twice as many runs (22) in the same number of innings pitched (61.2) would net the same team ERA of 3.18. Said hypothetical closer would have produced an ERA of 3.20, for what it’s worth; if the hypothetical closer had the league average ERA of 3.74 (per Fangraphs), the team ERA rises all the way to 3.20.

If the difference between elite and average is less than one tenth of a run, I am certainly in no rush to pass up a quality starter or a second outfielder to grab a Kimbrel or a Aroldis Chapman.

Who can you end up with so far down in the draft? Our league has two dedicated RP slots, to go with 4 SP and 2 P. For 2014, I drafted Steve Cishek and Tommy Hunter with my final two picks. Cishek finished with 39 saves. Hunter, not so much, but his struggles and demotion help to illustrate the built-in backup system to my strategy.

Saves are everywhere, and if you can’t (or won’t or don’t) get them on draft day, you can find them later on the waiver wire. The role of big league closer is one of the most volatile job markets around, with players always being demoted and promoted due to individual and team struggles.

When Hunter went down, I was able to find a couple of saves from Mark Melancon, Ernesto Frieri, LaTroy Hawkins, and Cody Allen throughout the season (I also went with a few players who had dual eligibility as SP and RP and ignored saves for a few weeks). Cishek finished with 39 saves, while my other closers combined for 26. Granted, it was the lowest saves total in our league, but I was also able to put together a squad that finished in 3rd place overall.

Who have I been able to snag in earlier years? In 2013, one of my closers was Jason Grilli, who made the All-Star team en route to collecting 33 saves and was undrafted. My other closer was fellow All-Star Glen Perkins, who was drafted and nearly immediately dropped. In 2012, I drafted Chris Perez (39 saves) and added Casey Janssen. 

I’ll say it again: Saves are everywhere; play the waiver wire.

Does this work in all formats? It might need to be adjusted a bit, but the basic concept (do not take closers too soon) is the same. I also play in a points-based league with no weekly matchups; we just accumulate stats over the course of the season. Because the point values for the pitching categories skew a little high (seven points for saves, ten points for wins, etc.), rather than waiting until the final few picks I will start taking closers a little earlier.

This season, I chose Fernando Rodney in the 13th round as my first closer, and he was the 11th closer taken off the board. It is always important to pay attention to what the other owners tend to do.

Rodney was part of a closer run and knowing how important the pitching stats are I wanted to be sure I got at least one projected mid-tier closer. While happy he did so, I will freely admit that I did not expect Rodney to lead the majors in saves.

This strategy may or may not work for you. You may or may not think I am crazy. But seeing how little an impact closers have in the long run, maybe you will choose to tweak your draft strategy a bit. If you have been scrapping at the bottom of your league standings for a while, what do you have to lose?