Keys To Success: Closers
What if there was one piece of fantasy baseball advice I could give you to guarantee success in your league? Like the holy grail of fantasy baseball, if you will. Well, there isn’t. However, there is an interesting feature on Yahoo! called Keys to Success. This is Yahoo!’s collection of the players that appear most often on the public top 500 teams in their database. Although many of the players on the list are obvious, such as Cliff Lee and Lance Berkman, there is one interesting pattern we can pull from the list.
The list is largely made up of breakout candidates such as Carlos Quentin and the aforementioned Cliff Lee; however, there are also a number of less significant players on the list. Namely, there are a number of relief pitchers on the list. Here are the relief pitchers that appear on the list along with their rank (as of May 31, 2008):
3. George Sherrill, BAL
5. Kerry Wood, CHC
6. Brandon Lyon, ARI
10. B.J. Ryan, TOR
25. Joakim Soria, KC
27. Jon Rauch, WAS
29. Brian Fuentes, COL
35. Troy Percival, TB
39. Kevin Gregg, FLA
41. C.J. Wilson, TEX
43. Houston Street, OAK
45. Matt Capps, PIT
What do these players have in common? Not a single one of them was drafted in the top 120 players in the Fantasy Baseball Expert League that I play in. In fact, only two of them—Street and Capps—were drafted before the thirteenth round, and those two are the last two players on the list. Soria went in the thirteenth round and then the next to be drafted was Kerry Wood in the 16th round. Eight closers were picked before Street and 20 relief pitchers were selected before George Sherrill—the top closer on the list.
Clearly we can see that the strategy of drafting a top tier closer is flawed in more ways than one, and we’re not talking about necessarily finding hidden closer gems. All of those players, with perhaps the exception of Brian Fuentes, were drafted in most drafts. In most cases being successful in fantasy baseball means finding a hidden gem or picking up a top prospect, but we can see here that staying away from top flight closers also significantly enhances your chances to finish well.
Waiting to select closers is beneficial for two reasons. First, closers are easily the most volatile position. Pitchers, in general, run a higher risk of injury than starters. Add the fact that closers lose their job at a higher frequency than any other position and you have a recipe for disaster. Waiting on closers minimizes the potential losses, but it also helps your team in another way. Waiting on closers means an extra pick higher in the draft to make your offense or pitching rotation more dynamic.
Imagine if instead of drafting Billy Wagner with your ninth round pick, you had selected James Shields or Alex Gordon. Dan Uggla was most likely available even later than that. My point is: you don’t need to find the breakout star late in the draft if you’ve created a solid offense and pitching staff early in the draft. In essence, just by ignoring closers for the first half of the draft, you gain an extra pick to spend on starting pitching or hitting that the rest of your opponents don’t have. Chances are the closers they’re selecting at that point may lose their job by the end of the season anyway.
The list is largely made up of breakout candidates such as Carlos Quentin and the aforementioned Cliff Lee; however, there are also a number of less significant players on the list. Namely, there are a number of relief pitchers on the list. Here are the relief pitchers that appear on the list along with their rank (as of May 31, 2008):
3. George Sherrill, BAL
5. Kerry Wood, CHC
6. Brandon Lyon, ARI
10. B.J. Ryan, TOR
25. Joakim Soria, KC
27. Jon Rauch, WAS
29. Brian Fuentes, COL
35. Troy Percival, TB
39. Kevin Gregg, FLA
41. C.J. Wilson, TEX
43. Houston Street, OAK
45. Matt Capps, PIT
What do these players have in common? Not a single one of them was drafted in the top 120 players in the Fantasy Baseball Expert League that I play in. In fact, only two of them—Street and Capps—were drafted before the thirteenth round, and those two are the last two players on the list. Soria went in the thirteenth round and then the next to be drafted was Kerry Wood in the 16th round. Eight closers were picked before Street and 20 relief pitchers were selected before George Sherrill—the top closer on the list.
Clearly we can see that the strategy of drafting a top tier closer is flawed in more ways than one, and we’re not talking about necessarily finding hidden closer gems. All of those players, with perhaps the exception of Brian Fuentes, were drafted in most drafts. In most cases being successful in fantasy baseball means finding a hidden gem or picking up a top prospect, but we can see here that staying away from top flight closers also significantly enhances your chances to finish well.
Waiting to select closers is beneficial for two reasons. First, closers are easily the most volatile position. Pitchers, in general, run a higher risk of injury than starters. Add the fact that closers lose their job at a higher frequency than any other position and you have a recipe for disaster. Waiting on closers minimizes the potential losses, but it also helps your team in another way. Waiting on closers means an extra pick higher in the draft to make your offense or pitching rotation more dynamic.
Imagine if instead of drafting Billy Wagner with your ninth round pick, you had selected James Shields or Alex Gordon. Dan Uggla was most likely available even later than that. My point is: you don’t need to find the breakout star late in the draft if you’ve created a solid offense and pitching staff early in the draft. In essence, just by ignoring closers for the first half of the draft, you gain an extra pick to spend on starting pitching or hitting that the rest of your opponents don’t have. Chances are the closers they’re selecting at that point may lose their job by the end of the season anyway.
