There's always some closer, come the annual MLB trade deadline, who loses all value in fantasy baseball due to his being traded to a team with a more prominent finisher.
This year, those closers-turned-setup men appear to be Archie Bradley, the former Arizona Diamondbacks finisher traded to the Cincinnati Reds on Monday, and Taylor Williams, the out-of-nowhere Seattle Mariners success story traded to the San Diego Padres right at the deadline. It was, in fact, the sixth trade completed by said Padres in the three days leading up to the deadline, and one of them also involved a closer who might not close for them in Trevor Rosenthal.
Check out all the latest closer situations in our team-by-team closer chart
Bradley, the No. 24 reliever on the Player Rater (and 21st if you eliminate the three starters who carry an eligibility), has pitched better than his peripherals, his 2.01 FIP well beneath his 4.22 ERA. Unfortunately, he has done so while shifting to an extreme fly ball leaning, has surrendered hard contact more than half the time when hitters do make contact and has lost more than a full mph off his four-seam fastball this season compared to last. Bradley's skills didn't seem top-shelf among closers, and while the Reds' incumbent, Raisel Iglesias, hasn't had a stellar season of his own, Iglesias has a more stable combination of good ground ball and hard-contact rates and has actually increased his average fastball velocity.
We'll await Reds manager David Bell's decision as to his top ninth-inning man, but Bradley seems more likely than not to shift to the eighth inning, a move that will take away almost all of his fantasy value.
Williams, meanwhile, was 46th among relievers on the Player Rater entering Monday's games, but he also had a win, four saves and a 5.19 ERA -- all of that the result of one particularly ugly appearance Thursday -- in his past nine games. He had seemingly arrived as a fantasy-relevant closer, only to see that chance drop to practically nil in San Diego, where Rosenthal, Drew Pomeranz and Emilio Pagan are all clearly more deserving of ninth-inning chances. Williams can be freely dropped in all leagues, as his 11.3% walk rate and career history of closer-to-20% strikeout rates suggest that he won't provide enough in terms of ERA, WHIP and K's to move the needle.
Is Rosenthal the best candidate to close in San Diego? Perhaps, as he has recaptured the near-100-mph fastball velocity he had in his best years in St. Louis, and had six saves, a 1.17 ERA and 12 strikeouts in his final eight appearances as the Kansas City Royals' closer. Still, based upon the makeup of the Padres' retooled bullpen, a Rosenthal-Pomeranz-Pagan committee makes quite a bit of sense. Keep Rosenthal around until we get a firmer read on his role, but if a single individual from that group grabs the closer chores, he'd be a top-10 fantasy closer the rest of the way.
As for the bullpens Bradley and Williams left behind, both the Diamondbacks and Mariners are lacking in proven replacements. The Diamondbacks had been using Stefan Crichton as Bradley's primary setup man most recently, but before the season it appeared Hector Rondon and Kevin Ginkel would battle for that role. Junior Guerra is another consideration, but none of these pitchers warrants the pickup in a shallow mixed league until there's some clarity.
In Seattle, the trades of Williams, Dan Altavilla and Austin Adams left the Mariners with precious few options to close. Yoshihisa Hirano, who returned from the injured list during the weekend, is the most logical choice, but he's worth stashing only in leagues much deeper than ESPN's standard. Yohan Ramirez, who notched a save during the weekend, could be another candidate.