Fantasy Perspective: Two Arms are Better than One

Finding a SP that can give you 14+ wins and a sub 4.00 ERA can tricky (only 22 did it in 2010), and usually costs a high draft pick. One lesser utilized strategy for managing your fantasy pitching staff is finding the premier non-closer relief pitchers to round out your staff. These players usually go undrafted and most of the time unnoticed in the majority of fantasy leagues. Here is a statistical comparison from 2010 that supports this strategy.

Example A: 185.0 IP, 14-7, 200 K, 3.84 ERA, 1.37 WHIP

Example B: 128.2 IP, 14-10, 155 K, 2.74 ERA, 1.08 WHIP

Example A is a SP that was most likely drafted within the first 100 picks of most 2010 drafts. Example B is the combined stats of two RPs that most likely went undrafted in 2010. While most of the categories are similar, the the major differences lie in IP, ERA and WHIP. Since the SP accounts for more innings, the ERA and WHIP are going to have a greater affect on it's teams averages in those categories, but the combined ERA and WHIP of the RPs is significantly lower providing just as significant help for their team's averages.

Now the reveal: Example A is SP Yovani Gallardo (Mil) and Example B is the combined stats of RPs J.J. Putz (CWS) and Sean Marshall (CHC).

The difficulty in this strategy is predicting which relievers will be in a situation to win games. Should your pitching staff need a boost, here are some non-closing relievers that have a history of putting up solid numbers in the ERA, WHIP, and K categories. You will just have to watch for who is getting the opportunity to win games.

Rafael Betancourt (Col), Hong Chih-Kuo (LAD), Ryan Madson (Phi), Luke Gregerson (SD), Nick Masset (Cin), Mike Adams (SD), Rafael Soriano (NYY) and Daniel Bard (Bos)