December 21, 2015

Fantasy Categorical Breakdowns

Saves: The General Landscape

by J.P. Breen

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The Baseball Prospectus Fantasy Team has offered keen insight in 10 different fantasy categories thus far, but this moment had to come. The dark beast of every fantasy owner had to rear its ugly head eventually. We have to talk about saves. I’m here to give a breakdown of the general landscape. Fortunately, George Bissell, and Matt Collins will bring the noise on holds and quality starts later this week.

Saves have traditionally been considered a highly randomized category, more or less a crapshoot, and for good reason. Over the past three seasons, no reliever amassed more than 40 saves in each of those respective years. Super-closer Craig Kimbrel came close but only shut the proverbial door in 39 games in 2015. In this way, one could conceivably say that fantasy owners shouldn’t target “saves” in drafts; rather, they should focus more on ERA, WHIP, and strikeouts for closers and take the saves as they come.

Such a trend of randomization probably happens for multiple reasons: (1) relievers are inherently volatile creatures, which means some percentage of turnover (due to ineffectiveness) should be expected each year; (2) teams are de-emphasizing the save statistic so “closer-by-committee” has become more commonplace; or (3) the tendency for top-tier teams to build elite bullpens has clusters traditional closers in the same ‘pen—Kimbrel/Uehara or Giles/Gregerson or Miller/Betances or Holland/Davis or the short-lived Chapman/Jansen.

To help visualize this a bit better, here are the closers who have saved 40-plus games in the past three seasons:

Player (2015)	SV		Player (2014)	SV		Player (2013)	SV
Mark Melancon	51		Fernando Rodney	48		Craig Kimbrel	50
Trevor Rosenthal	48		Craig Kimbrel	47		Jim Johnson	50
Jeurys Familia	43		Greg Holland	46		Greg Holland	57
Brad Boxberger	41		Trevor Rosenthal	45		Mariano Rivera	44
Huston Street	40		Kenley Jansen	44		Joe Nathan	43
			F. Rodriguez	44		Rafael Soriano	43
			Huston Street	41		Addison Reed	40

This table illustrates the abovementioned point: It’s almost impossible to target an elite closer for saves alone. The top-end of the saves category is too volatile and simply has too much turnover to comfortably project from season to season. Hell, even Boxberger isn’t guaranteed to close games in 2016—either due to the presence of Jake McGee or to a potential trade.

While the individual faces may be difficult to predict, the number of closers who clear a certain save threshold tends to be pretty consistent. In 2015, there were 12 relievers who locked down at least 35 ballgames. The year prior, Major League Baseball saw 13 closers net at least 35 saves. Finally, in 2013, there were 14 relievers with 35-plus saves. It suggests that we can reasonably expect at least a dozen relievers to bring that number of saves. Whether that’s actually helpful for fantasy owners, given the fact that the names of those relievers is unclear, is an open question.

What this can tell us, though, is that the number of saves is actually not declining as the emphasis on “relief roles” has begun to wane. The 2015 season still had a dozen relievers with 35-plus saves, which is in line with previous years. For example, only 13 closers had 35-plus saves a dozen seasons ago in 2004, when the “traditional closer” was in vogue. That leads me to believe the worry that new bullpen philosophies are eroding the top-end of the saves category.

[Fun Fact: Shawn Chacon had 36 saves with a 7.11 ERA in 2004. Seems good.]

As always, I’m not going to pretend that I can advise y’all which relievers will sit atop the saves category at the end of the 2016 season. I do, however, feel comfortable alleviating the fear that saves are getting harder to come by due to a gradual embrace of flexible bullpen roles. It appears that a dozen closers, at least, will have 35-plus saves in the upcoming year. Plan for that.

J.P. Breen is an author of Baseball Prospectus. Follow @jp_breen
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