Collette Calls: A Different Look at the 2024 Reliever Market

The home stretch is officially here, with many leagues designating this week for trade deadlines or FAAB activity. I know that is not the case in NFBC standard leagues, but it's the case in my local leagues as I continue in what has been my best fantasy baseball season since before I got married. Long story, but the year I met my wife, I won my baseball, football and basketball league in the same season and have never won more than one league in any year since putting a ring on her finger. I bring this up at least once a season, which ensures me a weekend on the couch in my man cave so I can focus on draft prep. 

This column is taking a 2024 tilt to it now given that it's only a weekly column and there are several other writers on the site providing content that can more readily help you in these final scoring periods. They're the red zone running backs, while I am someone more proficient in between the 20s if you will. I have a fantasy football draft later today, so forgive me for the only football reference you'll find in this article. One such article I was thinking of earlier in this paragraph was the one recently written by Ryan Rufe on his early look at the 2024 Closers. 

Rufe's article looked at how he and a few other sickos doing 2024 drafts in August are shaking out the early closer market. 16 closers went in the first seven rounds. The top 16 by ADP last year got us anywhere from Josh Hader (ADP of 50) to Daniel Bard (ADP of 159.) The table below shows the ADP for this single draft that Rufe and other sickos did compared to the final 2023 ADP, while also showing each reliever's 2023 earned auction value in a 15-team standard-league format:

We are really doing this again, aren't we? The return on investment, on the whole, for paying early draft capital for closers has not gone well this season. Research by friend, leaguemate, and co-owner Rob McCabe shows the relievers who are frequently showing up on the top teams in Rotowire Online Championships, and but one of them are on the list above. You should click on the embedded tweet to see the thread and how these top-performing teams divested their reliever portfolio, because it's rather interesting data as just one of these top-performing teams took two closers in the single-digit rounds:

Carlos Estevez was the sweetest late-round find, often going after the 20th round, but David Robertson, Will Smith and Adbert Alzolay have all stepped up to net double-digit saves this season as well, with none of them projected to net that production heading into the season. This very thread spawned a section of a recent Rotowire podcast with Jeff Erickson and Fred Zinkie as well, which you can hear if you jump to the 20-minute mark of the show.  

This brings me to the point of this article: who could potentially be some of the names to watch for as surprise relievers in 2024?

Let's begin by looking at the clubs who currently have projected openings at closer due to expiring contracts, as the league will likely play musical chairs here as names swap locations. These clubs will have openings with primary closers departing via free agency this winter:

• Chicago White Sox 
• San Diego Padres
• Texas Rangers
• Philadelphia Phillies
• New York Mets
• Oakland Athletics

The Mets situation has an obvious fix, with Edwin Diaz returning as David Robertson departs. The Oakland situation will likely be filled with a very affordable stop-gap measure, something which Trevor May has turned out to be for them this year after a very rough start. Texas is losing both Will Smith and Aroldis Chapman this winter, a pair who have saved what was a very leaky bullpen to begin the season. Josh Hader to Texas almost seems predestined at this point, but they may also be gun-shy after the Jacob deGrom debacle this past winter. Chicago won't be able to fix all their issues merely by spending money on a high-end reliever, but they also don't have many internal options as the system is rather barren of upside arms ready to produce at the major-league level. Philadelphia has other options in their pen and could simply promote from within while adding depth to their overall bullpen rather than throwing money at Hader or taking another dance on the wildside by acquiring the likes of Chapman as they end their time with Kimbrel. We know clubs will either be looking for replacements or upgrades, so I would like to take a look at some of the potential candidates for those roles based on their contract status and potential paydays.

Big-Money Free Agent Relievers

Each of these arms has the closer job with their current employer (editor's note: between writing and publishing, Robertson appears to have lost his spot in Miami) and makes at least $10M in 2023 salary but will be an unrestricted free agent after the season. Smith has the most trouble of the quartet in terms of stranding runners, while Hader has been ridiculous this season (when he's been used). The group has certainly performed to expectations even if Smith was a surprise addition to the picture very late in the spring. Hader and Kimbrel will get the payday, while the other two will either become a piece of a new puzzle or will take the money being dangled by a lower-division club for another year of full-time closing, with Smith being the riskiest future investment of the bunch.

Next-Tier Options 

Moore has three wins and zero saves but has quietly put up an excellent season of relief for the Angels. He is a closing risk with his high flyball tendencies, but that would work well in Oakland next season if Moore wans the payday. He has five career saves while successfully transitioning from a failed starting pitcher to an effective reliever over the past two seasons. Both May and Johnson have had issues with walks this season, but Johnson and his breaking stuff have still generated strikeouts. Johnson's walks were nearly all from his time with Colorado, as he's been very effective since joining the Atlanta bullpen and has looked like a guy auditioning for another closer role in a safer run environment for 2024. May did not get the benefit of a relocation this season as most of us expected, but his bargain 14 saves and four wins have certainly helped a few fantasy teams receive a serviceable return on investment this season.

Cheaper Relievers with Flaws

In 2022, the Rays plucked Jason Adam off the Kansas City discard pile and turned him into a very effective reliever. This season, they've done the same with Robert Stephenson after grabbing him from the Pirates, adding some velocity to his slider and tweaking his mechanics a bit to turn him into this year's leading contender for the "How do they keep doing this?!" award. Stephenson only has two career saves, but he's been extremely dominant since joining the Rays yet carries the risk of a heavy flyball approach, which leaves him susceptible to homers. Stratton was briefly the closer for the Pirates in 2021 but has been limited to different leverage situations with the Cardinals and now the Rangers. He doesn't have the swing and miss that most of the others have on this list, but his results are certainly noteworthy. If you want a cheap option for Oakland or Chicago to pick up and flip for value at the deadline next season, Stratton could be that guy.

Lopez has long had the stuff to be a dominant reliever, but the results vary by contest. He can look downright unhittable in one outing and then cannot find the plate in the next. You can't quit on a guy whose strikeout rate is 35 percent better than league average, but a team isn't going to give him the ball in the ninth until he find better control. Maybe he can land with the Rays and become the 2024 version of the reliever out of nowhere. Fujinami came over from Japan with dreams of becoming a starting pitcher but that is simply not reality. What is reality is that he throws very hard with a nasty splitter, but like Lopez, the results vary from outing to outing. The walks and homers have haunted him all season, but his stuff is tough to quit on. 

Chapman and his tweaked mechanics are going to get another crack at closing in 2024 because the walks can be somewhat forgiven when he has a 31 percent K-BB% thanks to his ridiculous 44 percent strikeout rate. Chapman is likely the consolation prize for whichever team loses out in the Hader sweepstakes, and Chapman isn't going be rostered as cheaply as he was by big-league clubs or fantasy managers this season. Middleton has had a surprising season of striking out batters this year with both the White Sox and Yankees. He has been rather effective since joining the Yankees and could be pitching himself into a more prominent role with his fifth employer since the start of the 2021 season. The walks are a risk for Middleton, but he has a 96th percentile whiff rate this season and is also in the 90th percentile in avoiding hard contact and does all this with his changeup now his primary pitch. Finally, Hicks just wants a chance to close again with his triple-digit fastball. He has added the strikeouts to the velocity this season with the addition of a sweeper to his arsenal, a pitch that is generating a 59 percent whiff rate this season. The walks remain an issue for Hicks, but the upside is titillating for him to get another shot at a full-time closer role. 

If you are in a league where this coming weekend is the final one to acquire players, this is your chance to stash away a cheap investment for your 2024 battle plans.