While most of the fantasy community must map out a plan for the ever-growing scarcity of reliable closers, those who play in SOLDS leagues can focus on skills over role. A talented reliever impacts leagues that count saves or holds in a combined category (SOLDS).<\/p>\n
High-leverage trends<\/p>\n
One-third of MLB teams may use a matchups-based approach or some form of committee this season. SOLDS formats reward relievers with high-leverage roles, even if they pitch in the seventh or eighth innings, expanding the player pool, as this chart of relievers reaching markers by saves versus SOLDS illustrates:<\/p>\n
RP Saves vs. SOLDS Last 3-Year Averages<\/p>\n
Category<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
20+<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
25+<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
30+<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
35+<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
40+<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Saves<\/p>\n
22<\/p>\n
14.7<\/p>\n
9.3<\/p>\n
4.3<\/p>\n
1.7<\/p>\n
SOLDS<\/p>\n
69<\/p>\n
47.6<\/p>\n
26.3<\/p>\n
10<\/p>\n
2.3<\/p>\n
Focusing on 2025, there\u2019s a larger gap between Saves and SOLDS when looking at pitchers with 34 SOLDS or fewer.<\/p>\n
RP Saves vs. SOLDS 2025 Results<\/p>\n
Category<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
20+<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
25+<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
30+<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
35+<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
40+<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Saves<\/p>\n
21<\/p>\n
14<\/p>\n
8<\/p>\n
3<\/p>\n
2<\/p>\n
SOLDS<\/p>\n
71<\/p>\n
48<\/p>\n
25<\/p>\n
8<\/p>\n
4<\/p>\n
For our purposes, here were the SOLDS leaders from last season:<\/p>\n
Winning teams usually generate more SOLDS, though last year\u2019s results include some surprises:<\/p>\n
Of the top 10 teams in SOLDS, eight qualified for the playoffs. Only Detroit made the postseason among the teams in the bottom third of this category. Remaining vigilant throughout the season and identifying which relievers are pitching the highest-leveraged innings for good teams will pave the way to success. For instance, of the three relievers I drafted in Tout Wars last season, none were active at the end of the year en route to a championship. Adding Emilio Pag\u00e1n and Brad Keller in-season contributed to my success.<\/p>\n
Relievers in any format can be volatile, but SOLDS casts a broader net at the position, and pitchers will emerge as the season progresses.<\/p>\n
For reference, here’s the reliever SOLDS trends over the past three years:<\/p>\n
Rankings<\/p>\n
With this in mind, and it\u2019s subject to change based on injury updates, here are my Top 75 relievers for SOLDS this season, along with blended projections and my own SOLDS projections.<\/p>\n
Finally, here are my results for the number of RPs by projected amount of SOLDS:<\/p>\n
Relievers with 10 or more SOLDS: 163
\nRelievers with 15 or more SOLDS: 118
\nRelievers with 20 or more SOLDS: 70
\nRelievers with 25 or more SOLDS: 52
\nRelievers with 30 or more SOLDS: 17
\nRelievers with 35 or more SOLDS: 4<\/p>\n
Statistical Credits: Fangraphs.com, Baseball-Reference.com, BaseballSavant.com and BrooksBaseball.net. Check out my work at Reliever Recon<\/a> and Closer Monkey<\/a> for daily updates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While most of the fantasy community must map out a plan for the ever-growing scarcity of reliable closers,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":605979,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,28,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-605978","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-fantasy-baseball","10":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116171829717351861","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=605978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605978\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/605979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=605978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=605978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=605978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}