DFS Baseball 101: Evaluating Bullpens

This article is part of our DFS Baseball 101 series.

When doing your initial hitting research, how often do you consider the bullpens? Or are you just basing your decisions on the starting pitcher? The same goes for your starting pitching decisions. The win is still important enough so you want a pitcher from a team in where if he goes six or seven innings, the chances to nail down the W are high.

How much of an impact does the bullpen make?

Well, bullpen innings represent about 37 percent of the total innings pitched.

Because we are not able to equate fantasy points to the bullpens as a whole, I took what I think are the most important statistics and ranked them top to bottom by team, then I took the average of the 11 categories. I'm sure you can add or subtract some of the categories, and it is subjective, but I think for the most part these are the ones to go with.

Before you ask, so this data is great, but how do I use it in my DFS research? Well, let's look at the Nationals. They have one of the worst bullpens in baseball, but it only accounts for 32 percent of their total innings because the starting pitching is so strong. In the case of the Nationals, you would want to target their weaker pitchers like Jacob Turner, Gio Gonzalez, or Joe Ross. They will end up going six innings at the most, so you get that Nationals pen for at least three innings.

On the flip side, the Reds have horrible starting pitching, but their bullpen is used 45 percent of the time because of it. Their bullpen is much better than their starting pitching at this point. My strategy with the Reds is I'm OK taking a huge offensive team against them, but a middle of the pack team I will shy away.

On a non-fantasy baseball note, look at the White Sox and Rockies. Their bullpens rank in the top five, and both teams are playing well above their heads this season.

% RP = The percentage of innings coming from relief pitching