Each and every season you can rely on closers getting over-drafted, yet somehow in 2018, the fantasy baseball world has jumped the shark. Kenley Jansen is going in the third round while Craig Kimbrel and Aroldis Chapman are going shortly thereafter. Meanwhile, each of those pitchers only throws enough innings to barely improve your team’s ratios. They may provide an extra 5 save opportunities over the third and fourth-tier closers, but neither that nor the extra 30 Ks help enough to warrant drafting them 150 spots earlier. You’ll notice, by the way, that I think so lowly of drafting a closer that early that I have David Price, who is relief pitcher eligible, ranked even higher than Jansen. The name of the game with relief pitchers in fantasy baseball is to wait as long as you can while still getting three or four closers. You will hardly notice a difference between your bullpen and the guy’s who spent a 5th, 9th and 12th round pick on his relievers. What you will notice, however, is that your team is looking down on theirs in the standings all year because your rotation and lineup will each be significantly better than theirs.
This concept works even better when you are able to target the closers that the general public doesn’t seem to realize are closers, or have not quite adjusted to the fact that a dominant setup man will also be a quality closer. There are a handful of these relievers this season and I am targeting each one of them. My closer targets this year are Brandon Morrow, Archie Bradley, Keone Kela, Dominic Leone and Cam Bedrosian who all possess top 10 closer potential and each should begin the 2018 season as their team’s closers. In fact, all five of these pitchers should get plenty of save opportunities because their teams are playoff contenders. If you are in an even deeper league, don’t feel too bummed if you end up with any of Fernando Rodney, Joakim Soria and Brad Ziegler. They may not be the best influences on your team ratio, but they provide saves and at a tremendous value compared to the rest of the position.
On top of the three or four under the radar closers I’m aiming to pick up, it is always my goal to add at least three lights out middle relievers, and generally four or five. If I can acquire Andrew Miller and/or Dellin Betances I’m always happy, but Chad Green, Brad Peacock and Josh Hader all stand out as excellent options as well. Peacock, in particular, is starting pitcher eligible, so owning him enables you to use an extra reliever each day when you otherwise wouldn’t be able to. If you haven’t already checked out my Marmol Strategy, it goes further in depth as to why owning all of these relievers is not only useful, but practically cheating. With all that said, let’s dive into my top 100 reliever rankings.
Other Rankings: C | 1B | 2B | 3B | SS | OF | SP
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