Why I’m Drafting Salvador Perez and Skipping the Early Round Closers
Despite the fact that MLB’s lockout is now nearly two months old, drafts for the upcoming Major League season are in full swing over at NFC. And as we approach the end of January, a disturbing trend is on the rise when it comes to the average draft position (ADP) for closers. With each passing week, the top-tier options seem to come off the board earlier and earlier as managers seek to ensure a baseline allocation of saves.
Such a strategy is the exact opposite of the age-old re-draft mantra of “don’t pay for saves.” But that doesn’t mean it’s wrong, as this is clearly an attempt to address certainty at what increasingly profiles as an extremely uncertain position. I understand the rationale, but a quick look at ADPs across the various NFBC formats leads me to the conclusion that I’ve got no shot at coming away from a draft with Liam Hendricks or Josh Hader, and even the likes of Raisel Iglesias, Emmanuel Clase, and Edwin Diaz is probably out of reach for me.
It’s not that I don’t buy into positional or categorical scarcity, or that I’m unwilling to pay for saves. Rather, it’s that I’m unwilling to overpay for them. My pivot is to pursue a more direct and targeted approach to position scarcity. In fact, there is just one target in that early closer ADP-range for me…
Salvador Perez
Historically, I’m not a big fan of zeroing in on a particular player, but I’d actually argue that targeting Perez in a draft isn’t so much the targeting of an individual player whose upside or skill set is appealing so much as it is targeting an elite tier at a position that lacks a predictable second one. In short, to me, Perez is tier one and two at the catcher position all on his own.
The obvious pushback to selecting Perez is that he’s coming off a career year where he set the single-season record for home runs by a catcher and managed career highs in exit velocity, maximum exit velocity, barrel percentage, and hard-hit percentage. That’s a fair criticism, but looking back at his 2020 COVID-shortened campaign we maybe should have seen some of it coming. After all, the numbers were already trending in this direction.
Since missing all of 2019 with an elbow injury, Perez has been an elite run producer over his last 198 games and will turn just 32 years old in May so he’s still in his prime. Even with the monster 2021 season, Perez still struck out a career-worst 25.6% so it’s possible we haven’t even seen his ceiling yet. A scary thought. Further cementing his elite fantasy status at the catcher position is an everyday role as the DH when he’s not behind the plate. Something we simply don’t see out of other catchers. To me the prospect of a 75–35–100 stat line and a .270/.300/.500 slash from the position is simply impossible to overlook.
So now that we’ve addressed Perez, let’s talk about skipping the premier closers. After all, taking Perez in the first thirty-five picks likely eliminates Hendricks or Hader as options, but it’s not like one couldn’t follow his selection with one of the other strong closer options still on the board. Still, I won’t.
Generally, the goal in 5x5 or 6x6 rotisserie leagues should be to reach the 80th percentile or better when it comes to the number of points in each overall category. This type of output should be enough to win a 15-team NFBC league, and also should provide the ability to compete across the broader field. With that in mind let’s look at saves as a category, where it looks like 70–75 of them should get the job done and 80 saves heads into “lock-it-up” territory.
The total accumulated saves across the last two full major league seasons were as follows: 1191 in 2021 and 1180 in 2019. That’s an average of 1185.5 so let’s call it 1,186 for 2022 target purposes.
Now let’s look at how many players accumulate those saves, or the bulk of those saves to be more precise. The chart below represents the number of pitchers that totaled 30 or more, 20 or more, and 10 or more saves over the past three full major league seasons.
At present, approximately ten closers are going inside the top one hundred picks in NFBC 50s and Online Championship drafts. With that and the above totals in mind, let’s say the first twelve closers drafted all post 32 saves on the season. That’s 384 saves or less than one-third of the total saves that will likely be accumulated across the major leagues this year.
Am I oversimplifying this a little? Probably. And to be honest, the process of cobbling together saves all season certainly sucks. But the uncertainty of the upcoming season and each passing day without a labor agreement makes this prospect seem more and more palatable to me.
To quote the old Mark Twain adage, “It’s not what you don’t know that kills you, it’s what you know for sure that isn’t so.”
For me, the 2022 x-factor is the lack of clarity we have when it comes to so many closer situations combined with the unknown timelines of the upcoming season. By now we should be counting the days until pitchers and catchers report, but instead, the players and owners are mired in a labor negotiation. That means we don’t know the landing spot of some key free agents and even some closers we expect to move. We don’t have injury status updates. We don’t know how rookie service time might be impacted. We don’t know about the National League DH. Frankly, we don’t know a lot.
What we do know is that we need to accumulate saves to compete and that in leagues where you can make moves there are a lot of ways to get there. Both catchers and saves are necessary to achieve fantasy baseball success. But my level of uncertainty surrounding all but the best of the best closers and the corresponding price tag for those guys on draft day means I’m bowing out of the race to acquire what most managers believe are the blue-chip options to hit the save threshold.
No. Instead, I’m going with what I know is the only player at the catcher position that can provide me with leverage over the rest of my league. And for better or worse, what I do know might also be what kills me.