[...]

If you've played fantasy baseball long enough, you've heard some variation of the phrase "don't pay for saves" before. If you're new to the fantasy baseball community, you'll get used to it soon enough. The long-form version, for those of you who are indeed trying out fantasy baseball for the first time, is this: bullpen usage is volatile (especially these days) and saves are an incredibly arbitrary stat to begin with, so don't sacrifice high draft picks on closers.[...]

San Diego Padres closer Kirby Yates continued his strong spring on Sunday, firing a scoreless inning and striking out two. Through five innings, Yates has yet to allow a run. Yates will start his age-32 season as the Padres undisputed closer after inheriting the role in the second half of last season. Yates posted a spectacular 2.14 ERA, 0.92 [...]

[...]

Fantasy sports can be just as frustrating as they can be fun, and few positions encompass that more than a fantasy baseball relief pitcher. A reliever can go from a fantasy darling to a completely meaningless name in your lineup overnight. And that's without an injury causing the issue.With the recent trend of not naming a closer and instead going with matchups, it's getting even harder to predict bullpens for fantasy baseball. [...]

[...]

"Don't pay for saves."That has always been the advice repeated ad nauseum by veteran fantasy baseball players and while that sentiment is true on the surface, dealing with bullpens in fantasy baseball is a lot murkier in 2019 than it was in 2009.[...]

2018 was a season to forget for yours truly, both in terms of fantasy performance and hit rate on bold predictions. In the first three years as a participant in this feature, I connected on three per article, with a few others in the realm of respectable. Last year? An 0-fer, and most of them were impressively lousy.Does that mean I plan to be any less audacious as a result? Hardly. That would defeat the purpose of the exercise. Besides, regression is inevitable! Right? Right?![...]

So far, 2019 has been a very good year for guys named Mariano. Legendary New York Yankees reliever Mariano Rivera became the first unanimous Major League Baseball Hall of Famer in January.In March, Nick Mariano of RotoBaller, originally of Sleepy Hollow, New York, was announced as the No. 1 Most Accurate Ranker for Fantasy Baseball by FantasyPros, based on his 2018 ranks.I love the link between me and him so much, Nick Mariano said of Rivera. Now I live in Boston, right near Fenway Park. My fian[...]

Its never too early to start looking toward the fantasy baseball season, and Im here to continue RotoBallers position-by-position rankings analysis series for points league and head-to-head (H2H) formats with the ever-volatile relief pitcher position. The "closer carousel" seems to spin faster and faster every year, and there are very few names in the 'set it and forget it' category. [...]