Each week during the season, I take a look at the reliever landscape to aid with waiver wire and trade decisions. A couple of injuries, promotions and bad performances from top guys made for an interesting week.

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Fantasy Baseball Saves + Holds League Advice

Saves + Holds Saves Leaders

There are 16 players with at least nine saves plus holds through April 30th.

Takeaways

• Cincinnati makes some noise in the reliever world with seven combined saves plus holds from Emilio Pagan and Tony Santillan in the last seven days. They only allowed two runs in their combined seven innings with six strikeouts. Pagan grabbed five of those six punchouts.
• Mason Miller has looked the part of one of the best pitchers in all of baseball. He has only allowed two earned runs in his 11 innings pitched, and that comes with a sky-high 18 K/9.
• Lucas Erceg has been racking up the saves plus holds, but the strikeouts haven’t been there. His 21.5% strikeout rate is 7% lower than last season and will only add to his value if he can get it back up to around 28%.
• Andres Munoz, Hunter Gaddis, Reed Garrett, Luke Weaver, Kenley Jansen and Yimi Garcia have yet to allow an earned run this season. Jansen (eight innings) is the only one of this group with fewer than 10 innings pitched.

Saves + Holds Relief Pitcher Rankings

Here are my top 40 relievers for saves plus holds leagues.

Biggest Fallers

Emmanuel Clase (RP – CLE) | No Change

Emmanuel Clase lost his role as the closer in the past week. Cade Smith had taken over and did so without any hiccups, picking up two saves. However, Clase has since appeared in three games, picking up five strikeouts in three innings, allowing one run and nabbing two saves plus holds. It shouldn’t be long before the top-drafted closer is back closing out close games for the Guardians.

Devin Williams (RP – NYY) | -4

Like Clase, Devin Williams lost his closing job this week. He had been struggling mightily and Luke Weaver has been lights out, so the Yankees made the switch. Nothing has been going right for Williams, as his strikeout rate is over 20% lower than his career average and his walk rate is higher than it’s ever been at 15%. He has had back-to-back outings picking up two strikeouts over two scoreless innings, hopefully leading to a turnaround.

Ryan Walker (RP – SFG) | -11

Ryan Walker hasn’t been bad outside of back-to-back blow-up starts a couple of weeks ago. However, Camilo Doval is a familiar face in the backend of the Giants’ bullpen and has been splitting the high-leverage situations. Walker had a very impressive year in 2024 and is doing a good job of limiting hard contact, but the strikeout rate has fallen. His current 24.5% strikeout rate is solid, but a far cry from the 32% he put up last year.

Porter Hodge (RP – CHC) | -13

Porter Hodge has done a good job of inducing weak contact and getting strikeouts as the set-up man for the Cubs. Despite those positives, he has an 11% walk rate that has helped contribute to his 5.14 ERA and 1.36 WHIP. His underlying data looks good. With an xERA of 2.90, there should be better days ahead, but for now, there are too many options with better WHIPs.

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