Welcome back to the newest edition of our Reliever Ranks series! This will bring you up-to-date bullpen depth charts every morning for the day’s games and makes for an excellent tool for those looking to stream saves or wins. This series runs seven days a week, so check in every morning to get your daily bullpen fix!
Notes
Transaction and Schedule Notes
- The upcoming Monday (6/20) is a travel day for a bit over a third of the league getting a scheduled day off. Teams playing in order of start time are: MIA, NYM, CHC, PIT, DET, BOS, NYY, TB, SF, ATL, TOR, CWS, STL, MIL, KC, LAA, ARZ, SD.
- Alexis Díaz was placed on the 10-day IL by the Reds. The wheel keeps turning for the Reds. Please don’t ask about the replacement in the Cincinnati bullpen. Save yourself while you can.
- Matt Foster was placed on the Bereavement List by the White Sox leaving the competition for holds pretty thin for their mid-week series against Toronto.
- Josh Hader is expected to return to the Brewers on Monday, however this is not yet confirmed as of the writing of this article. Look out for the news at some point in the late morning or early afternoon.
Yesterday’s Performances
PHI 3 – WAS 9
- The Phillies tried to get Corey Knebel some low-leverage innings for him to try to regain his control, but it didn’t help. Three more walks in this outing give him nine walks in June compared to six strikeouts in 6.1 IPs. This doesn’t look like a guy who’s preparing to imminently take his closer role back. This looks closer to a guy who’s trying to figure out how to stay in the league.
- Washington needed just six outs with a nice cushion of a lead, so not much to read into with their bullpen usage. It is an opportunity to recognize Carl Edwards Jr. for the important bridge role he’s grown into in this Nats ‘pen. He’s probably the third-most trusted guy they have just six weeks after coming up from AAA-Rochester.
SFG 3 – PIT 4
- After a hiccup earlier this month, Jarlín García looks to be back on track with a two-inning scoreless performance here. Tyler Rogers took the loss in this one after giving up a walkoff homer Jack “Willie Stargell” Suwinski.Even if you look past his once-in-a-career seven run meltdown back in May, Rogers just hasn’t been as sharp as he was last year, even though he still leads the team in holds. He’s safer than his overall numbers would lead you to believe, but not as safe as last year’s performance seemed to indicate.
- David Bednar took the rare blown save, just his second of the year in thirteen chances, but was picked up by the Pirates’ offense and ended up being credited with his third win of the year. Bednar yet again went multiple innings in this one as the Pirates have showed no hesitation to use him in whatever way they feels gives them the best chance to win. However, after seven May saves, he just has two so far in June. Such is life when you ride with a Pirates’ closer in this day and age. Hold on tight. The Pirates will win some close games again soon.
STL 4 – BOS 6
- Another run allowed for Génesis Cabrera and I can’t help but think his rhythm was thrown off after being asked, out of the blue, to throw 58 pitches on June 5th. He’s only had four outings since then, but he’s allowed multiple hits and a run in each of his last two appearances. He’s still one of the better relievers in the NL this year, though, so I’d expect him to re-adjust and figure things out.
- Another one-out save for Tanner Houck courtesy of a ninth-inning Red Sox bullpen meltdown. It was Tyler Danish this time who gifted the save to Houck. Typically, having a mess of a bullpen around a good closer tends to lose more save opportunities than it creates, but the timing has just been in Houck’s favor this week. In June, Houck has all four of his saves on the year and has allowed just one run with eleven strikeouts and one walk in 7.2 IPs. Looks like Houck has found a home.
TBR 1 – BAL 2
- Luke Bard is the latest in a seemingly unending string of Rays relievers to come up and immediately turn heads with a scoreless innings streak. Bard has recorded six straight scoreless innings after his two-inning outing on Sunday. I don’t see anything to get particularly excited about here, though.
- Jorge López picked up his eleventh save of the season by recording the last four outs of the game on Sunday allowing just one hit. A trio of holds were also distributed to Mike Baumann, Félix Bautista, and Cionel Pérez. It seems a trade is the only thing that can slow Lopez down as he now has gone ten straight appearances without a walk and has thirteen strikeouts in that time while going six-for-six in save opportunities.
NYY 9 – TOR 10
- It was a rare meltdown from Wandy Peralta that cost the Yankees the game on Sunday. His three runs allowed earned him his second blown save and first loss of the season. They were his first runs allowed of June and snapped a seven-appearance scoreless streak.
- Jordan Romano went five outs to record his seventeenth save of the season, but his first of June. After an unbelievable April, Romano has been a bit frustrating for fantasy with an ERA of 5 in May and now a very limited workload in June. If the Blue Jays want to keep up in the hyper-competitive AL East, they’ll need Romano to be healthy down the stretch, so, for now, just consider this an ebb in the ebb and flow of a long season.
TEX 3 – DET 7
- Matt Moore recorded two more scoreless innings and has now gone eight straight scoreless since the beginning of June with twelve punch-outs and two walks. Moore also recorded his first save of the season in this month, however, for now, it looks like that was more due to workload concerns of other relievers than anything. With only two holds on the year, it’s been hard to roster Moore in many leagues despite his ratios, but be aware that his performance is deserving of higher-leverage innings.
- A mountain of holds were handed out in the Tigers’ bullpen, however the offense extended the lead just enough to take away the save from Gregory Soto. After a string of ten appearances spanning from mid-May to early June where Soto didn’t allow a walk, Soto allowed four walks in four appearances in the middle of this month and, not surprisingly, it coincided with runs allowed. No walks in this one, so hopefully this starts another walk-free streak for him which, usually, leads to success for Soto.
MIA 6 – NYM 2
- Whenever Sandy Alcantara is on the mound, Marlins relievers know that they won’t have much work to do. On Sunday, it was just Tanner Scott who came on for the final frame, although not in a save opportunity. For better or worse, Scott seems to be the guy in Miami right now. He’s got a lot of strikeout potential and he’s been limiting walks so far in June, but his career 13.3% walk rate is a hint of the danger fantasy managers would carry by relying on him for saves.
- A rough 7th inning was all it took to do in the Mets in this one. Seth Lugo was brought in to try to stop the bleeding, but was unable to and ended up taking his third blown save of the season. He remains one of the top holds options on one of the best teams in the NL, although he’s unlikely to blow you away with strikeouts or ratios.
MIL 6 – CIN 3
- A whole host of holds went out to Brewers relievers and Devin Williams finished things out to earn his fifth save of the season. Williams is riding an insane fifteen inning scoreless streak over which his K:BB ratio is 24:3. All the same, with Josh Hader expected to return on Monday, Williams isn’t likely to see save chances regularly going forward.
- It’s quite possible that Jeff Hoffman is the most trustworthy reliever in the Reds’ bullpen. I…. I think I need to lie down.
ATL 6 – CHC 0
- A simple maintenance day for Kenley Jansen as Atlanta hasn’t needed the back half of their bullpen much over the past week. He must have been enjoying his rest because he worked quickly and retired the side on seven pitches.
- Adrian Sampson piggybacked for 4.2 IPs on Sunday and allowed just one hit while striking out five. The back end of Chicago’s bullpen needed some rest and Sampson was able to provide plenty of it. His future role is a bit unclear, so this isn’t really worth an add in any league despite the performance.
SDP 3 – COL 8
- Adrian Morejon got his second big-league appearance of the year as he works back from a number of ailments. His raw stuff has the potential to be filthy coming out of the bullpen, but he has a long injury history to come back from and lots of competition in a solid Padres’ bullpen to beat out before he can provide any kind of value.
- It was so sad to see Tyler Kinley go down for the year. After Daniel Bard, I’m not really putting any of these guys for Colorado on my radar
KCR 0 – OAK 4
- Just mop-up innings from the Royals’ cleanup crew in this one. Nothing very fantasy-relevant.
- Domingo Acevedo was the first out of the bullpen and the only one to be credited with a hold before the A’s extended the lead a bit. Sam Moll closed it out with another scoreless inning and now sports an impressive 1.27 ERA through his first 21.1 IPs on the year. He’s squarely in the holds mix, but not among the first couple in line.
CLE 5 – LAD 3
- Emmanuel Clase shut down the Dodgers for his fifteenth save of the season with Eli Morgan picking up the victory for his 1.2 IPs of scoreless work. Earlier in the year it was Trevor Stephan who was the star, but now Morgan finds himself on a crazy streak of 30 Ks, 4 BBs, and 1 ER in his last 23.1 IPs and is the team leader in holds.
- The Dodgers’ bullpen was unable to hold on to the 3-2 lead going into the 9th and it culminated with Craig Kimbrel giving up two runs in the top of the 9th and being saddled with his third loss of the season, all of which have come since May 29th. Daniel Hudson has been clearly better than Kimbrel for most of the year, but also the Dodgers can afford to stay the course with Kimbrel if they believe he’s the best option for the playoff run. Personally, I think Hudson should be owned far and wide right now. If a move is made, he’s arguably an RP1 the rest of the way.
LAA 4 – SEA 0
- Despite having a four-run lead, the Angels decided to use all of their top arms yet again to close out the game leaving them with their top three arms all having worked three games in four days. Only Aaron Loup walked away with a hold for his efforts. The Angels don’t have a day off Monday, so it will really be anyone’s guess as to how they manage the late innings with their top guys having such heavy workloads.
- It’s always a beautiful day when Andrés Muñoz has his best slider. A cool seven whiffs on thirteen offerings and yet somehow both of the balls in play he allowed went for base hits and misplay in center field allowed a run to score. Despite the final line, this was peak Muñoz and peak Muñoz has one of the best sliders in the game.
MIN 1 – ARI 7
- Aside from Griffin Jax, the middle of this Twins bullpen has been pretty rough and that trend continued on Sunday. This time it was Caleb Thielbar letting the game get out of hand allowing four runs and recording just two outs.
- That’s sixteen straight scoreless appearances for Joe Mantiply as he lowers his ERA to 0.36 on the year. Tell me, why is Mark Melancon still pitching important innings for this team?
CHW 3 – HOU 4
- The White Sox again went with the clean-up crew despite some of their top arms needing a maintenance inning to stay fresh. Kendall Graveman is widely considered to be the closer here, but he does have to be put in games for us to confirm that.
- The Astros used their A-team bullpen here as all four of their top arms worked with three earning holds and Ryan Pressly notching his thirteenth save. Despite sizable drops in velocity and K-rate and stiff competition from Rafael Montero and Ryne Stanek, Pressly has converted ten straight saves and seems to still be solid in the closer role.
Bullpen Depth Charts
Also, if you’re looking for a detailed list or ranking of RPs, check out Rick Graham’s weekly pieces:
The Hold Up 6/9: Ranking the Top 100 Relievers for Holds
Closing Time 6/14: Ranking the Top 40 Closers
Top 100 Relievers for Save+Hold Leagues: 6/17
Photos by Icon Sportswire | Adapted by Doug Carlin (@Bdougals on Twitter)