Drafting Fantasy Baseball Relief Pitchers

They're the elephants in the room at every fantasy baseball draft. Yes, we're going to talk about relief pitchers. Every league handles them differently. Some leagues only require a set number of pitchers, while others look for you to find setup men to account for holds.

Still others only allow two designated relief pitchers, and some do a combination.
Regardless of the scenario, drafting relief pitchers is only slightly more of an exact science than starting pitchers.

In general, we know who will close games for most teams. Even better, we can ultimately figure out the seventh and eighth inning pitchers as well based on usage and appearances.

This knowledge can make some relievers seem as valuable as starters on the surface. Sure, they may not get wins, but during the course of any given week, they may put up five to seven innings. That's equivalent to one start. It's POSSIBLE mind you, not necessarily likely because of the limit placed on appearances and pitch counts.

Over the course of a 162-game season, the top closers put in maybe 60 to 70 appearances. And that only accounts for the best in the game. Most only go an inning—two at the outside. In fact, Salomon Torres led all closers with at least 20 saves in innings with 80.

Yes, saves are important, but that, in general, is the only stat that closers themselves have enough impact on during a week to even be considered material.

Even setup men don't get the necessary innings over the course of a season to risk drafting them too early. If we're skeptical on closers and starters, setup pitchers are even worse. Holds are arbitrary statistics that are never definitive. Blown holds border on impossible to predict and calculate.

Where does that leave us?...

Confused, in all likelihood.

If you're me, you begin by evaluating the steadiest of positions. This year, we have at least five, if not closer to eight, teams that will be in some sort of split situation at the outset.

Oakland (Joey Devine/Brad Ziegler), the Cubs (Kevin Gregg/Carlos Marmol), Tampa (Troy Percival/Dan Wheeler/Grant Balfour), St. Louis (Chris Perez/Ryan Franklin), Colorado (Manny Corpas/Huston Street), Detroit (Joel Zumaya/Fernando Rodney), Baltimore (George Sherrill/Chris Ray), and San Diego (Heath Bell/undetermined) are all in fluid situations.

Even this list isn't complete. You could argue Arizona, Atlanta, and even the Mets, may have debates over the course of the season as to who should end games. Got all that?

With all of this taken into account, that's a full third of baseball that could see changes over the course of the season. The list of names does not take into account any injuries or poor performances that could cost players jobs during the season.

Don't panic, take a deep breath, and we'll get through this.

There is good news. The top-ten closers in baseball should be secure in their jobs (outside of the aforementioned Mets), barring injury. The Mariano Rivera's and Jonathan Papelbon's of the world are going to do their thing every night. The Twins, Phillies, and Angels will do the same with their closers.

From a drafting standpoint, I usually reconcile myself to the fact that I won't end up with Rivera or Papelbon. I'm simply not willing to move that early on a closer. I like to target Joe Nathan almost every year. Usually, once the AL East rival closers are off the table, you can buy a round or two before you need to look at the Twins ninth inning specialist.

Why move on Nathan as opposed to a starter? Top closers, and saves in general, are harder to find than wins. Without netting one, you can count on losing the category nearly every week.

Additionally, this year in particular, there are two positions I'm going to pay attention to runs in: second base and closer. Second base is especially shallow outside of the top five, and closers always go in bunches.

Given the number of teams with uncertainty in the role, it's almost more important this season. That could certainly lead to overreacting, and that's where only you can determine how your draft will unfold. If the first two closers are off the board by the middle of round three or four, moving early on your own might not make sense.

Should another two or three jump off, then it might be time to make a move. I like to have one sure-thing, and I always back that up with his setup man. It's like handcuffing a starting fantasy football player in that regard. If I grab Papelbon, I'm drafting Saito before the draft is over to be safe.

Secondly, I don't like the idea of keeping more than three closers on my roster. If I'm limited to two RP's and then using three or so that could be either a starter or a reliever, I'm going with the guys that are going to pile up stats in multiple categories as opposed to one-stat wonders.

The secondary guy I draft won't be in the top 10 and might not be in the top 20 (depending on the size of the league). I can live with that. You don't have to win every category in a weekly league in order to be competitive.

Saves is one that I feel owners should be willing to leave to chance. You may pull out the win some weeks and not others.

Grabbing two closers early can severely hurt you in other positions that are shallower. That's especially true for second base and catchers in 2009.

Looking at categories such as holds, I would adjust a strategy to allow you to grab middle relief in the later-third of the draft. The second you start thinking about taking sleepers, you should consider middle-relief. Personally, I wouldn't want to be involved in a league that uses holds as a category, but to each his own.

There are very few that are necessarily "elite" in the middle of bullpens. For that reason alone, I think focusing a strategy to corner the market on this type of category is tough and nearly useless.

Like starting pitching, relief pitching work is best done in the early parts of the season. Each team that has questions will have them answered by May, or they won't be in contention long. Draft one stud, then look to capitalize on a true second or third-tier closer later on to round out your bullpen.

The best move you can make will be in grabbing a free agent to pile up saves. Every year we get one Brad Ziegler, and this year will be no exception.

The Roundtable is your source for fantasy baseball and football information. You can follow the Roundtable on Twitter at @theroundtable. E-mail with your questions to [e-mail].