Fantasy Baseball Draft Strategy: Should You Pay for Saves?

The tried and true philosophy in fantasy baseball when it comes to drafting closers is “you never pay for saves.”

If you listen to the experts, they’ll all tell you that same piece of advice. If you listen to the people that listen to those experts, they’ll all tell you the same thing as if it’s their own idea that they’ve been riding to fantasy championships for years.

I don’t want to be the guy to challenge the system, and I won’t be the guy drafting three closers in the first six rounds. But I will say I am not convinced by this philosophy.

Maybe I’m not convinced because I waited last year, and I ended up watching my ERA get blown to pieces Trevor Hoffman and Chad Qualls. Or maybe it’s because closer can be a very difficult position to predict and rely on once you get past the top tier.

Another reason I am not sold on the philosophy of you don’t pay for saves is that when you draft a closer, they count for more than saves. Let’s not forget that a closer’s stats count towards ERA and WHIP and strikeouts just as much as a starting pitcher. A closer only pitches 50-80 innings, which you might not think makes much of a difference in the long run, but that is not the case.

Take, for example, a team who had Ryan Dempster, C.J. Wilson and Bobby Jenks last year, the three pitchers' collective ERA would have been 3.70. Replace Bobby Jenks with Mariano Rivera in that same group, and you have a group ERA of 3.38, over three tenths of a point better.

When you pay for a closer, you aren’t paying for just saves; you’re paying for a guy who can ideally help you in ERA, WHIP and a bit in strikeouts as well.

And when you pay for a closer, you are also paying for consistency. Eight of last year’s top 10 preseason closers are in the top 10 of our esteemed Rotoprofessor’s rankings (posted this morning) again this year. When you draft Mariano Rivera, Joakim Soria, Heath Bell or Brian Wilson, you know what you are going to get out of them and you don’t have to worry about scraping the bottom of the waiver wire barrel a month into the year to try and find someone to replace Trevor Hoffman and Chad Qualls (I swear, I am not bitter).

The experts will tell you that you don’t have to pay for saves because you can get them at any point during the year off the waiver wire for free. And there is some truth to that. Closers come and go all year long, but there is never a guarantee that you are going to find some gem coming off the bench to replace that guy. Wouldn’t it just be easier to have someone reliable and avoid the constant scouring of the injury reports and closer carousel rumors. 

I am not saying that you should go out on draft day and drop a quarter of your budget on a stable of closers. I just don’t think it is always wise to let the elite closers go off the board, because you know who the sleepers to take late are and you know who you’re going to get on the waiver wire in July.

In my opinion, the best strategy is to always try and get one elite closer to anchor your relief pitching and to help control your ERA and WHIP and then look for another good one or two guys later.

But then again, who am I? This is just one man’s opinion, and, most everyone else would probably disagree.

But the real question is, what do you think? Are you one who pays for closers or waits and takes what’s left at the end and off the waiver wire?

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