The 2021 season got a head start on its annually anticipated closer turnover, with as many as six bullpens seeing a change from their start-of-spring projected closers over the past week. If you play in a league that separates the player pool into single league (AL or NL) universes, the impact was especially dramatic in AL-only leagues, where three of the 15 teams had their ninth-inning decisions impacted by injuries. Not that it's uncommon at this time of year, but the RP position saw the most ranking/ADP (Average Draft Position) changes during the March 19-26 week -- and many of them were dramatic shifts.
The closer news from the Toronto Blue Jays was the most impactful. Kirby Yates, fantasy baseball's No. 2 relief pitcher just two short years ago and a pitcher signed to a one-year, $5.5 million contract to work the ninth inning, succumbed to season-ending Tommy John surgery on Wednesday after battling elbow/forearm woes for much of the past seven months. Yates' absence paved the way for Jordan Romano (declared by pitching coach Pete Walker just two days before Yates' surgery to be a "closer in the making") to assume the ninth-inning role. However, manager Charlie Montoyo did counter shortly afterward that he wouldn't actually name a closer initially.
Montoyo's words will help keep Romano's fantasy price tag in check -- something we certainly appreciate -- and perhaps the manager will be a man of his word, going committee-style and including Rafael Dolis, David Phelps and Tyler Chatwood in the mix. That said, as I wrote earlier this week, Romano's spring adjustments affirm his being an ideal fit for the role. Romano is now my RP15. He has a top-eight positional ceiling and, on average, he has gone 12th among relievers in NFBC (National Fantasy Baseball Championship) leagues since Tuesday.
Moving 22 miles south (which is how far apart they're playing for at least for the month of April), the Tampa Bay Rays got bad news late Thursday night on Nick Anderson, who was widely presumed to be the top option at the head of a projected closer-by-committee. News broke that the pitcher has a partially torn ligament in his elbow that will cost him at least 50% of the season.
While the Rays are perfectly happy to pick matchups for every single batter faced -- they matched a major-league record with 12 different pitchers recording a save in what was only a 60-game season -- Anderson's absence places more of the late-inning burden on Diego Castillo (who most commonly "closed" during the 2020 postseason) and Peter Fairbanks. They are now my RP29 and RP32, respectively, though Fairbanks' 98-mph heat and 30%-or-so strikeout rate look particularly attractive at that price point.
Just as we did last week, let's take a quick stroll around the league, examining the news and draft trends you can exploit in this critical final spring training weekend.
