I primarily play in head to head roto leagues (yahoo style), which deviates from the industry standard of rotisserie leagues. I do this for a number of reasons, which I may go into in a later entry. But my main thoughts for today are about how the different styles are affected with respect to middle relievers.
Middle relievers are often sought out as a bit of a stabilizing force for your rotation. The top set-up men can often help you out with about a half dozen vulture wins, a couple of saves, 80 to 100 strikeouts, an ERA below 2.50, and a WHIP under 1.20.
If you add two of them together, you can often create what one might think of as a hybrid ace. A bonus for drafting a top set-up man is the chance that they could take over the closer role during the season, giving you a cheap source of saves.
This can be especially true for managers who prefer not to use a high draft pick on the top closers and tend to wait and pick up the second and third tiers of backstops.
I employed this strategy for one of my public 12-team yahoo leagues. I drafted the Dodger’s and the Padres’ to compliment my relief corps of , , and . The earliest reliever I drafted, Soriano, I took with my 14th selection and I was quite happy with my hodge-podge bullpen.
Looking at last year’s stats, if you combine Broxton and Bell’s stats, you would have a pitcher who looks like this: 10 wins, 4 saves, 201 K, 2.59 ERA, and a 1.12 WHIP over 163 IP. That would be a pitcher that appeals to me.
Now obviously they don’t equal one pitcher because they take up two roster spots, and also wins and saves for a set-up man are very volatile and unpredictable. But you would expect the strikeouts and ratios to be pretty legit under most circumstance. As a bonus, both pitchers are backing up aging closers for what was expected to be contending teams.
Unfortunately, now that we are about six weeks into the season, I am seeing a major flaw in my plan. While neither pitcher is performing particularly well (Broxton has a 5.28 ERA and Bell only has 14 strikeouts through May 12th), that isn’t what is bothering me about this tactic. Broxton’s recent struggles have pointed out to me that middle relievers lose substantial value in head to head leagues.
This may have been obvious to some but it was clearly an oversight on my part and I have not been able to find any information from other experts about being careful about drafting non-closers in head to head formats (although some may just ignore the head to head format of fantasy baseball).
The problem with middle relievers and head to head leagues is that you are not benefiting from the fruits of their labor. They work well for traditional roto leagues because you get the full season benefit of their fantastic statistics. Any manager who had Bell and Broxton in a roto league last year can look at their combined statistical output and smile about having that help in all categories.
But for head to head leagues their statistics are rarely substantial enough to help you in any given week. In fact, they are much more prone to hurt you than help you due to one bad outing adding one to six earned runs to your weekly total.
Right now they are sitting at 15.1 and 21.2 innings pitched, for a total of 37 innings with 36 combined strikeouts. That is an average of about 6 innings pitched with 6 strikeouts per week if you have both on your roster. In terms of strikeouts, 6 could be considered about par for a middle of the rotation starter with one start for the week. This generally won’t make or break your category, depending on your rotation strength and league settings.
The problem is that the 6 innings pitched is not enough to offset one bad outing by either (or both) pitcher, nor does going 6 scoreless innings help you a considerable amount unless you have a very small staff.
Because of this, and the fact that their appearances each week are largely unpredictable, I feel that set-up men and middle relievers lose a lot of their value in head to head leagues. I am not saying to not roster one or two, because they can provide some value (especially if they take over the closer’s role), but that their value should be downgraded in leagues where you do not benefit from the sum of their parts.
Before I was afraid to drop them if a starting pitcher or hitter became available, deeming them too valuable to my bullpen. Now I know that it is ok to let them go if I need to make a key move to help other parts of my team.
