Fantasy baseball waiver wire: 5 sneaky relief pitcher adds

Heading into a new week, here are five sneaky relief pitchers to take a look at on the waiver wire in your fantasy baseball leagues.

In fantasy baseball, in terms of relief pitching, saves is the sexy and generally most valuable (as in points) category. It can lead to other categories, or even red flags in deeper metrics, to be ignored. Holds have, pardon the pun, taken hold as a category to expand the universe of usable relievers in fantasy.

It’s also valuable to know who would be next up for saves if the current closer went down to an injury. Maybe that guy has current value anyway, and would take off if he was first in line to close games. Better teams obviously yield more save chances, but high leverage relievers and closers on bad teams shouldn’t be ignored.

Heading into a new full week, here are five sneaky relief pitchers who should be on your radar on the fantasy baseball waiver wire.

Note: Rostered rates are as of the morning of Mon. May 22, with stats through Sun. May 21.

Fantasy baseball waiver wire: 5 sneaky relief pitchers to add

5. Hunter Harvey, Washington Nationals

Kyle Finnegan leads the Nationals with nine saves. But Harvey picked up save on Sunday, and the numbers show he’s been the better pitcher.

Harvey: 3.00 ERA (3.24 FIP), 10.3 K/9, 3.0 BB/9, 0.95 WHIP
Finnegan: 5.00 ERA (6.13 FIP), 8.5 K/9, 5.0 BB/9, 1.72 WHIP

Harvey has blown three saves, but he also has eight holds and two wins. Outside of two rough outings, where he has allowed five runs over a total of 2.1 innings, he has allowed zero runs in 16 of his other 18 outings so far this season.

Harvey might be more of a watch list guy than a slam-dunk must-add, outside of the deepest leagues. But he’s hovering around taking over the closer role in Washington.

ESPN Ownership: 1.1%
Yahoo! Ownership: 7%

4. Michael King, New York Yankees

The Yankees have a full-blown closer committee, with Clay Holmes (five saves), Wandy Peralta (three saves), King (three saves) and a few others who’ve picked up one save so far this season.

Among the top three mentioned, King arguably has the best combination of fostering enough swings and misses (9.5 K/9) and control/command (2.5 BB/9). Via Baseball Savant, he is 90th percentile or higher in xSLG, barrel rate, average exit velocity and hard hit rate.

One hold thus far is less than ideal for fantasy leagues that use that category. But King is on the fantasy radar in leagues with 12 or more teams.

ESPN Ownership: 9.6%
Yahoo! Ownership: 40%

3. Bryan Abreu, Houston Astros

Abreu is the clear setup man for closer Ryan Pressly in Houston, having pitched earlier than the eighth inning once in his last 17 appearances. He has picked up two saves, six holds and two wins over that span, albeit with one of those credited wins coming after a blown save. Over his last 15 outings (15.2 innings), he has 24 strikeouts and three walks.

Abreu has closer-type stuff (14.5 K/9, 0.85 WHIP this season), albeit with some red flags (42nd percentile hard hit rate and 32nd percentile average exit velocity, per Baseball Savant), without the primary role. He is an absolute asset in leagues that count holds (eight this season), and even only picking up stray saves in Pressly’s stead he could push toward double-digits there this season.

ESPN Ownership: 20.7%
Yahoo! Ownership: 52%