Since I so thoroughly enjoyed evaluating the best non-closers in the majors last week using the Relief Rubric (shown below), this week I thought I’d take it a step farther. Listed below are the best 1-2 punches in baseball for the 8th and 9th innings, using the top 50% of last week’s non-closer list along with their 9th inning counterparts. For parity, I’ve also included the top performing closers in baseball and evaluated their setup men as well (although there is some overlap.) In each case I will total the points for all duos in hopes that this process will reveal just who the best relief combos in baseball are. Let’s take a look...
Here’s the matrix I used last week, based on metrics that are both skill and performance based.
Without any trades or call-ups making major headlines or waves over the weekend, there is not a complete battle to necessarily be had. Still, there are spots that need to be picked and some that will influence the deepest of leagues. One such instance is happening in Detroit.
Because you asked for it. Now, this isn't an "Automatic" update, sorry we don't have that technology. But, I will do for you is have it updated each Sunday.
So after using Joey Vottolast week, the request was for a more direct comparison this week. Attacking another superstar is probably not the best way to go, so this time the examination comes in the form of another top-30 Outfielder. This one, in fact, is very close to cracking the top 20. Shane Victorinobrought fantasy owners some solid value last season, and currently is being selected with pick 70 overall. His numbers, though, may not pan out to make that selection worthwhile.
At this time last year fantasy players were slowly becoming frustrated with Felix Hernandez. His draft position was greater than his value dictated, requiring people to draft him hoping for a spike in statistics that had been anticipated since 2006. Since he at least met, and probably surpassed, all expectations in 2009 (he finished fifth among pitchers in Wins Above Replacement) he is being drafted among the first tier of starters. What really led to his increase in value and is it sustainable?
Going into the season we ranked Ian Kinsler as our top pick at second base. Though you could still argue this late in the year that Chase Utley might have deserved an edge on the Rangers' second baseman, you can't fault the fine contribution Kinsler has made: 97 runs and 85 RBI through Thursday (to Utley's 112 and 93), and 31 home runs and 30 stolen bases (where Utley has 31 and 23). Kinsler's entry into the 30-30 club makes him the second Ranger to record the feat, and only the third second baseman to do it in major league history.
All the same, it's strange to say that Kinsler has managed all this with the worst batting average of his major league career. Granted, he only has a .280 career average to begin with, but this year it dropped to .253, and it shouldn't take long to figure out why:
Joey Votto was one of the players we most closely followed this season; we wondered at draft time whether he would turn out to be a worthy pick as your first first baseman, and halfway through the summer we considered how his performance to that point might bode for his rest-of-season success. And now, with another full season in his record, it looks like Votto is a legitimate contender for one of the top first basemen entering 2010.
Signed by the Angels as an amateur free agent in 2002, Erick Aybar has played with no other organization since, and stepped through the minors year by year, one league at a time, until making his major-league debut, aged twenty-two, on May 16, 2002. Aybar showed himself to be a fair, if not great hitter in the minors, with an above-average fielding ability and exceptional speed--in his five full minor-league seasons, Aybar stole a total of 169 bases, and over 30 every year from 2003 through 2006.
Signed by the Blue Jays as an amateur free agent in 2001, Alfredo Aceves played in the Dominican and Mexican leagues thereafter, until the Yankee signed him as a free agent in 2008. Aceves made his debut in the American minor leagues in the Yankees organization, and soon made his first appearance with the major-league club on August 31st of that year, pitching two innings of scoreless relief against, in one of baseball’s many pleasant coincidences, the Toronto Blue Jays.
In a last-minute signing earlier this week, Brad Penny was whisked from a release from the Red Sox to a spot in the Giants rotation, bringing him back to the National League from a brief, failed experiment in the AL East. He had a 7-8 record with a 5.61 ERA over his tenure in Boston, blown to outsize proportion by a ghastly string of starts in August. In five starts from July 27th through August 21st, Penny pitched an average of five-and-a-third innings and gave up a total of 27 earned runs.
