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2025 Fantasy Baseball Relief Pitcher Preview: Closers may get the glory, but don't ignore non-closing relievers

andy behrens
Fantasy analyst
·6-min read

Fantasy baseball’s founders gave us an excellent game full of delights. Unfortunately, the founders were dealing with a limited menu of box-score statistics back in 1980, so they also passed down the terrible burden of saves.

[Join or create a Yahoo Fantasy Baseball league for the 2025 MLB season]

In all likelihood, fantasy baseball will force you to devote an outrageous amount of time and mental energy to the pursuit of saves over the next eight months — a regrettable situation for which we apologize in advance.

Much of our content throughout the season will focus on bullpen hierarchies and potential save sources. You will spend a shocking percentage of your FAB resources chasing saves. It’s by far the worst of the 10 standard scoring categories, without question.

Sure, you can attempt to lock up saves at your draft by aggressively collecting closers in the early and mid rounds, but, honestly, every tier of relief pitchers has a trap. Last year, plenty of managers were full of confidence after drafting some combination of Camilo Doval, Evan Phillips, David Bednar, Paul Sewald, Jordan Romano, Craig Kimbrel, Alex Lange, José Alvarado and/or Adbert Alzolay, but each of those relievers busted or broke down (or both).

In recent seasons, initial closers across the league have ultimately delivered approximately 50% of total saves, per data compiled by Jeff Zimmerman (a true hero for taking on the task). Over the past four years, an average of 214.3 different pitchers per season have recorded at least one save.

If these facts make the saves chase seem like a daunting task … well, yeah, it’s a pain.

But we can also regard the widespread in-season availability of saves as good news. If your fantasy bullpen is unfinished entering the year, that’s absolutely fine. Every season produces a fresh batch of new closers, some of whom will finish among the most valuable relievers in our game. Overdrafting relief pitchers is generally a bigger problem than under-drafting them.

For those of you still playing in rotisserie leagues, we should also mention one of the great cheat codes, which is the use of elite non-closing middle relievers. It’s a population of players that’s routinely overlooked and widely available, but the best of them are unreasonably good on a per-inning basis. Roto leagues at Yahoo have an easily reached IP max, so you can’t afford to burn innings on pitchers with low K-rates. (H2H points is the default scoring system at Yahoo, just for the record.)

If you’d kept, say, Jason Adam and Cade Smith in your active lineup over the full 2024 season, you would have received this ludicrous combined stat line:

  • 149.0 IP, 13 W, 5 SV, 184 Ks, 1.93 ERA, 0.88 WHIP

That’s basically Cy Young-worthy production from a pair of unwanted relievers. Consider this approach as a no-cost alternative to hoarding aces in the early rounds.

Walker is such a screaming value in fantasy drafts. Based purely on quality-of-stuff and last year’s production, he might just deserve to be one of the top three or five relievers off the board. His sinker/slider combo was cartoonishly unhittable; his Savant page is full of red bars. Walker struck out 99 batters over 80.0 innings last season while delivering a WHIP of 0.85 and saving 10 games. He looked suspiciously like a guy who deserves elite-tier fantasy status heading into 2025.

On talent, Muñoz should probably reside in the position's first or second tier. He doesn't quite get the draft love he deserves, however, because he hasn't yet delivered a season with 30-plus saves. Let's simply remember that he's a 26-year-old with elite velocity, coming off a year in which he delivered a K-rate of 33.2% and a WHIP of 0.96. You want him. We have zero worries about either job security or the quality of his stuff.

Hoffman was terrific last season, delivering a 2.17 ERA, 0.97 WHIP and 12.1 K/9 for the Phillies. He’s also an easy fade in his first year with Toronto, following news (from the reliever himself) that two teams backed away from agreements with him due to medical concerns about his shoulder. Obviously, it’s possible that Hoffman will navigate the season unscathed, but, as a general rule, we should not be aggressively targeting pre-injured or semi-injured pitchers.

Last season, Suárez was a revelation for the Padres and a late-round gem for fantasy managers. He saved 36 games and won nine while delivering acceptable (if somewhat lucky) ratios. He’s been the subject of persistent trade rumors throughout the offseason, however, and he wouldn’t necessarily serve as the closer for a team acquiring his services. San Diego’s bullpen is loaded with potential ninth-inning options — Jason Adam, Jeremiah Estrada, Yuki Matsui — so they are well-positioned to flip the soon-to-be 34-year-old Suárez.

Yeah, OK, so Josh Hader is blocking his path to the ninth, which is no small obstacle. But Abreu is the next man up for the Astros, plus he’s exactly the sort of elite reliever who can help us in a non-closing role. Over the past two seasons, he’s struck out a ridiculous 203 batters in 150.1 innings while delivering a 2.45 ERA. His variety of per-inning production can help swing a roto league or a head-to-head weekly matchup, even if saves are few and far between.

Jordan Romano seems like the favorite for saves in Philadelphia entering spring training, but reportedly nothing is guaranteed. Kerkering has the traditional closer’s velocity along with a disgusting sweeper. He’s coming off a year in which he struck out 74 batters in 63.0 frames, producing a 2.29 ERA and 1.08 WHIP. If he finds his way to the ninth, he will immediately land among the elite relievers.

  • 1. Emmanuel Clase

  • 2. Josh Hader

  • 3. Devin Williams

  • 4. Edwin Díaz

  • 5. Mason Miller

  • 6. Raisel Iglesias

  • 7. Ryan Helsley

  • 8. Andres Muñoz

  • 9. Félix Bautista

  • 10. Jhoan Durán

  • 11. Ryan Walker

  • 12. Robert Suárez

  • 13. Ryan Pressly

  • 14. Tanner Scott

  • 15. Pete Fairbanks

  • 16. Alexis Díaz

  • 17. Trevor Megill

  • 18. Kenley Jansen

  • 19. Jeff Hoffman

  • 20. David Bednar

Yahoo consensus relief pitcher rankings