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Congratulations on making it to the last installment of RotoBaller's first wave of fantasy baseball rankings. As noted in the other 2016 fantasy baseball rankings articles, these rankings were submitted by Brad, Max, Kyle, and myself back on December 6th, and as such the most recent transactions are not reflected yet (such as the Ken Giles or Steve Cishek trades).
Editor's Note: If you missed previous installments of our December rankings, you can find them here: catcher, first base, second base, shortstop, third base, outfield part one, outfield part two, and starting pitching parts one and two.
Our 2016 fantasy baseball rankings dashboard is loaded with lots more rankings, all in one easy place. We have tiers for every MLB position, prospect rankings, and dynasty/keeper analysis.
2016 Fantasy Baseball Rankings: Relief Pitchers
Relief pitchers are fairly simple at first glance. You just look at the guys who have a job in the ninth, sprinkle in those elite K/9 and low ratio relievers (Dellin Betances, Carter Capps), and blend together job security, skill set, and if you want, projected workload (that’s a quick way to get into trouble). Projecting which team is going to generate a healthy amount of ninth inning opportunities can be a decent data point, but it’s an easy way to get too cutesy and overlook those first two points. Remember when Toronto didn’t have a save opportunity in a month? I held Brett Cecil for a long time only for him to finally get a few opportunities and then lose his job to Roberto Osuna.
The ninth inning, and the bullpen in general, is a volatile universe. It’s never too early to take a peek at the 2016 fantasy baseball season, and this article’s purpose is to dive into the bullpens. Hold your nose.
As you can see, we all have the same names in our top five, with Aroldis Chapman holding down the #1 spot across the board. These ranks were put out before the Dodgers trade was on the table and the troublesome gun/assault situation was brought to light. That said, there’s still no doubting that Chapman’s gaudy strikeout potential and clear slot in the ninth makes him very deserving of the top spot. Rounding out the top five after him for all of us in varying order are Wade Davis, Craig Kimbrel, Andrew Miller, and Kenley Jansen.
After this we have our first real noticeable deviations, as three of us have the two sinker baller maestros in Zach Britton and Jeurys Familia in the 6-8 range, with someone putting one of them out of their top ten (Kyle has Britton at 12 and Brad has Familia at 11). There's nothing much to think about here, but it's interesting all the same to see where the double digit numbers start trickling in on rankings. I hesitate to overthink these things,
We also have quite a range on Glen Perkins, with Max pegging him at #10 and my own rank of Perkins at #18. Perkins absolutely has some consistency to him and doesn’t have anyone pushing him for closing duties, so I can definitely see the ranking (especially with Minnesota’s offense trending upwards), but I just didn’t like what I saw out of him last year. I'll defend my stance a little since this is my section. His walk rate remained stable, but his K/9 dropped a full point (going from 9.63 to 8.53). His home run rate is due to come down, but his BABIP and strand rates weren't unfortunate last year and shouldn't be the source of "bouncing back" next year. His GB/FB ratio has been dropping every year since 2010, and it leaves the door open to the aforementioned home run problem. Neither his FIP and xFIP had been over 3.20 since 2010, but in 2015 he posted a FIP/xFIP of 3.82/3.76. Not horrible, but not encouraging either.
Another rather big split comes with Osuna, as I have him way up at #13, with Brad putting him down at #22. He’s young and anchoring a bullpen that hasn’t seen any great stretches of consistency, not to mention that he pitches in a home park that is known for the home run ball. I wager most of this comes from not wanting to take Osuna over more proven veterans like Francisco Rodriguez, Huston Street, and the aforementioned Perkins. That is more than fair, but I love that he had a over a strikeout per inning while still holding a BB/9 around two while being a young guy in the ninth (though "guts" are not really a ranking factor, I still like seeing it).
You might also notice that Brad is the highest on Betances (along with Kyle) and Capps. There is something to be said for getting those pitchers who can be counted on to lower your ratios and deliver healthy strikeout numbers at the same time for the amount of innings they pitch. If you subscribe to the SAGNOF school of thought (saves ain’t got no face), you can fall into getting your saves alongside some pretty middling numbers. If you can bring some balance to your squad with a Betances or Capps to accompany those types, you can get the best of both worlds. There is also the fact that if something happens to Andrew Miller or A.J. Ramos then these two guys are the next men up and will be in immediate top 10 consideration (see Wade Davis).
We all pretty much round out our top 30 the same way, with those guys who have mediocre job security and a decent skill set. Types like Santiago Casilla, Shawn Tolleson, and Brad Ziegler. Those are the guys you like to round out your RP stable with, rather than cobbling three of them together to get your saves. There are some bullpens that look like they’re setting up for spring training battles and may become committees, which is always unfortunate for us in the fantasy baseball world, but that means there is some murkiness towards the bottom there and you’ll want to keep your ear to the ground for news out of those camps.
Closers & Relief Pitcher Rankings for 2016 Fantasy Baseball
| Name | Brad | Max | Kyle | Nick | Composite |
| Aroldis Chapman | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Wade Davis | 5 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 3 |
| Craig Kimbrel | 2 | 2 | 5 | 5 | 3.5 |
| Andrew Miller | 3 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 3.5 |
| Kenley Jansen | 4 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 4 |
| Zach Britton | 6 | 6 | 12 | 7 | 7.75 |
| Jeurys Familia | 11 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 8 |
| Ken Giles | 8 | 9 | 6 | 10 | 8.25 |
| David Robertson | 12 | 7 | 8 | 8 | 8.75 |
| Trevor Rosenthal | 9 | 11 | 9 | 9 | 9.5 |
| Mark Melancon | 10 | 12 | 10 | 11 | 10.75 |
| Cody Allen | 7 | 13 | 11 | 12 | 10.75 |
| Glen Perkins | 13 | 10 | 14 | 18 | 13.75 |
| Brad Boxberger | 17 | 14 | 16 | 15 | 15.5 |
| Huston Street | 19 | 17 | 13 | 14 | 15.75 |
| Hector Rondon | 14 | 15 | 19 | 19 | 16.75 |
| A.J. Ramos | 16 | 19 | 18 | 16 | 17.25 |
| Dellin Betances | 15 | 22 | 15 | 20 | 18 |
| Roberto Osuna | 22 | 20 | 17 | 13 | 18 |
| Francisco Rodriguez | 20 | 16 | 23 | 17 | 19 |
| Jonathan Papelbon | 21 | 18 | 20 | 22 | 20.25 |
| Carter Capps | 18 | 25 | 27 | 26 | 24 |
| Jake McGee | 23 | 23 | 25 | 28 | 24.75 |
| Santiago Casilla | 25 | 24 | 26 | 24 | 24.75 |
| Arodys Vizcaino | 26 | 21 | 28 | 25 | 25 |
| Luke Gregerson | 28 | 26 | 24 | 23 | 25.25 |
| Carson Smith | 33 | 27 | 21 | 21 | 25.5 |
| Brad Ziegler | 27 | 31 | 29 | 29 | 29 |
| Shawn Tolleson | 32 | 28 | 30 | 27 | 29.25 |
| Drew Storen | 29 | 32 | 30 | --- | |
| Darren O'Day | 24 | 30 | --- | ||
| Tom Wilhelmsen | 31 | 29 | --- | ||
| Joakim Soria | 30 | --- | |||
| Tyler Clippard | 34 | --- | |||
| Kevin Jepsen | 35 | --- | |||
| Kevin Siegrist | 36 | --- | |||
| David Hernandez | 37 | --- | |||
| Ryan Madson | 38 | --- |
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