Bullpen Depth Charts: Relievers To Stream — 4/19

Welcome back to our Relievers to Stream for Wins and Saves series! This will bring you up-to-date bullpen depth charts every morning for the day’s games and makes for a great tool for those of you looking to stream saves or wins. This series runs seven days a week, so be sure to check in every morning to get your daily bullpen fix!

Notes

Schedule notes:

• The Twins-Angels game was postponed due to Minnesota outfielder Kyle Garlick testing positive for COVID-19. Today’s game has been postponed, as well.
• With that postponement, just under half of teams are in action today (14/30), so be sure to check and make sure your player has a game scheduled today before streaming. For Tuesday, many teams will be working with pretty fresh bullpens.
• With so few games and many teams sending out one of their top starters, it’s best to save your roster move and not stream a reliever try to vulture a win today.

Injury news:

• Jake McGee was put on the COVID-IL due to vaccine side effects. The important thing to note about this particular designation is that players don’t have to wait 10 days to return. The Giants only expect this absence to be another day or two, so expect to have McGee back in action this week.

• J.B. Bukauskas fans will have to wait at least until Tuesday for his debut as the Diamondbacks went with Stefan Crichton in a save situation who, again, gave a mediocre showing. Despite picking up his first save of the year, he gave up a base hit and a walk while generating no swings and misses. Crichton is almost sure to be supplanted by someone else in the ninth and it’s just a question of who is given the next crack between Bukauskas, Kevin Ginkel, and Yoan Lopez.
• With Stephen Strasburg being a late scratch, the Nationals had to empty out their bullpen and use any arm available to get through this. If you’re rostering Ryne Harper or Kyle McGowin, you’re doing something wrong.

• Giovanny Gallegos continued his strong start to the year and has now allowed just four hits compared to 13 strikeouts in nine innings of work so far. Sorry, Jordan Hicks fans, Gallegos is the clear next in line after Alex Reyes.
• The Phillies bullpen was given a day off due to Aaron Nola’s CGSO.

• Diego Castillo was brought on to get four outs across the seventh and eighth innings, leaving Jeffrey Springs to pick up his first career save. If you don’t love this, then you don’t love Rays baseball. Consistently going to Castillo in the ninth for the first couple weeks was the exception rather than the rule for the Rays. Castillo is still absolutely the guy we expect to get most of the saves. Just know that 70% of the team’s saves going to Castillo is likely the absolute best-case scenario here.
• Chad Green continues to impress for the Yankees and has allowed just three hits in nine and two-thirds innings pitched so far this year. Despite the middling numbers from 2019 and 2020, this is a guy who has put up an xERA of 2.09 in 35.1 IP since switching to a fastball/curveball guy from a fastball/slider guy in 2020. The strikeouts haven’t come around yet, but they should. Even if he isn’t getting holds, Green could earn a roster spot in deeper leagues by helping ratios and strikeouts .

• Emmanuel Clase picked up save number four on the year, striking out the side while allowing a base hit. It was encouraging to see Clase come out for the second day in a row and the third game in four days and still average 100+ on his cutter. The Indians are off on Monday, but Clase may even get an extra rest day on Tuesday due to the heavy workload recently.
• The Reds were playing from behind and used mainly long relievers of little consequence to fantasy.

• Liam Hendriks was one run away from picking up the rare double-save day. He pitched the seventh of both games of the double-header, striking out two and allowing one hit. He threw just 24 pitches combined across the two innings, so it wouldn’t be out of the question to see him out there again on Monday, but I’d doubt it.
• The story of the day for me in the Red Sox pen was Phillips Valdez. He appeared in both games, throwing three perfect innings striking out three and putting up a tasty 41% CSW on his changeup. He’s allowed only two hits in eight innings this year and is throwing his really good changeup even more. He could very well start seeing holds opportunities soon.

• In the absence of Jake McGee, Tyler Rogers picked up his first save of the year, retiring the side on three straight groundouts. McGee’s absence, and thus Rogers’ time in the closer role, should be brief, so don’t read too much into the save opportunity. For deeper leagues, one name to watch is Camilo Doval who was called up and debuted in this one-run game. Doval’s inning was dominant, striking out two of three batters he faced with a slider that generated three whiffs on just seven pitches. He also featured a fastball that averaged 98. After the game, starter Alex Wood said “It’s going to be exciting to have him [Doval] in the back-end of our bullpen moving forward.” I know it’s not the coach, but it’s enough for me to put Doval on watch in a holds league.
• I know he didn’t do well in this game, but I’m going to continue to talk up the recent performance of Ross Detwiler. The pair of walks brought his total to three on the year compared to eight strikeouts in six and a third innings. He has an xSLG of .104 on 13 batted balls! Yes, he’s pretty far back in the pecking order in terms of holds, but he could get there!

• The Blue Jays mostly rolled out failed starters or uninteresting swingmen in this game. None of the relievers carry much fantasy interest.
• Josh Staumont picked up his second hold of the year pitching a perfect eighth allowing Greg Holland to pick up his second save. Holland continues to somehow avoid the blowup we all kind of figure will happen. Six walks in six and a third innings and a 6.95 xERA so far this year are hard to escape. Staumont hasn’t been throwing as hard this year and it’s come with fewer strikeouts, but also fewer walks. One walk and two hits in seven and a two-thirds innings so far is worth noting. However, he still has a bit of a hard-hit problem with a hard hit % of 50 last year and 55 this year. If he maintains his control, I’d probably bet on his being their second-half closer. That makes two days in a row for both Staumont and Holland, so the Royals may hesitate to send either out on Tuesday after their off day Monday.

• Both the Pirates and Brewers emptied the back end of their respective bullpens trying to stay in a close, extra-inning affair. Richard Rodríguez picked up the win pitching a scoreless ninth and working around the bonus runner in the tenth. Rodríguez has been lights out this year relying heavily on his fastball and would be the only guy in the Pirates bullpen I’d be interested in owning right now.
• We saw Devin Williams and Josh Hader take the eighth and ninth respectively in a tie ball game. So much for taking Williams out of high-leverage situations for a while, eh? This one was pretty encouraging for me. Williams’ fastball velocity had been down and walks had been up so far this year. His fastball averaged 96.6 and touched 98.5, which I believe is his fastest pitch all year, and he didn’t walk anyone. It’s small, but his owners are likely looking for any shred of hope to avoid dropping him and I think this outing, at least temporarily, provides some. Oh, and Hader got six swings and misses on his fastball in ten pitches. What? 11 strikes on 13 pitches. He’s as dominant as we’ve ever seen him and that’s saying a lot.

• César Valdez picked up the final two outs of the ninth in a tie ball game. Not much news to glean from this appearance.
• Ian Kennedy struck out the side in order in the ninth on 15 pitches bringing his season-long K:BB ratio to 11:0 in six innings. I’ve been fading Kennedy very hard so far this year and haven’t believed in his success, but I have to re-evaluate with those types of results. He’s back to relying heavily on his four-seamer like he did in 2019, a season in which he had a lot of success and earned 30 saves. xERA, FIP, and xFIP all agree that he has been extremely effective over his first six appearances. I just can’t shake a feeling about him.

• Edwin Díaz picked up his second save of the season retiring the side on ten pitches allowing one hit. It seemed to take him a minute to ramp up this year, but this was the second day in a row for him and he still hit 100 a couple times. He seems to be fully built up now.
• Mychal Givens worked a scoreless eighth and Daniel Bard a scoreless ninth to keep the deficit at one for the Rockies. I’m not super interested in either. Yes, Bard gets saves, but there are many better relievers out there. It was the second day in a row for both of them, but the Rockies have an off-day Monday.

• José Cisnero struck out the final two batters of the bottom of the eighth to get out of a jam, but Gregory Soto allowed the winning run on what the scorer ruled an error. I don’t know, the ball was hit pretty hard, so it could have easily been a base-hit. Given their performance, it’s hard to recommend rostering either.
• Lou Trivino was used in the top of the ninth in a tie ball game and ended up picking up the win. He’s a pretty solid reliever and I think he stays in the closer’s role a while. I’m not really scared about Jake Diekman or J.B. Wendelken making a push despite me being pretty high on Wendelken earlier in the season.

• Brusdar Graterol made his first appearance of the season after being activated from the IL. It wasn’t ideal, but the fastball velocity was there. Allow him a few more appearances to get up to game speed. After that, I’d say he’d be in the holds mix along with the occasional save as the Dodgers seem to be babying Kenley Jansen a bit more this year.
• Mark Melancon regained a share of the MLB saves lead with his sixth of the season. Keone Kela pitched the eighth in what was then a tie ball game and ended up picking up the win when the Padres put up three in the bottom half of the frame. He’s done great so far, but this is such a deep bullpen that even breaking into the holds discussion is hard. He’s a really good pitcher, though, and I’d say roster good pitchers and trust that good pitchers will eventually find good roles.

• The Astros were down multiple runs in the middle innings and didn’t end up using any relievers with much fantasy relevance.
• Rafael Montero was used in the eighth inning when the Mariners were up five. He started warming when the Mariners were up three, but they put up two runs in the bottom of the seventh and it’s possible that the M’s just decided to use Montero anyway. If it had been a save situation, I think it would have been yet again Montero in the eighth and Kendall Graveman in the ninth. It remains to be seen if this is a committee situation or if Graveman is the go-to guy now.

• The Braves went up big early, but they still used Luke Jackson  and Tyler Matzek. Matzek is following up an impressive 2020 with an equally impressive start to 2021. His three strikeouts last night bring his total to 14 in seven and two-thirds innings so far this year.
• Craig Kimbrel got his first work since Tuesday pitching the ninth in a game that was already lost. This was likely a scheduled outing for Kimbrel who hasn’t gotten much work over the past week. Because of this, I wouldn’t worry too much about the walks. It can be hard for a closer to bring the same level of intensity and focus in a low-leverage situation.