Fantasy baseball: Closer depth chart, relief pitcher rankings for Week 14

As we get closer and closer to July, it feels like bullpen hierarchies are finally settling in. The clubs who believe in closers have settled on them, and barring some sort of injury or other disaster, there aren’t a ton of loose saves to be found on the waiver wire.

Of course, this is 2023 we’re talking about, so there’s always one injury or another — and this past week was no exception. A former All-Star is now on the shelf with arm trouble, a potential 2023 All-Star was mysteriously unavailable this weekend and we may have seen multiple changings of the guard in the ninth inning. We’ll go through all that and more along with a full depth chart of every bullpen in the league.

Relief pitcher notes: Week 13

• We wrote last week that there looked to be a changing of the guard in the ninth inning for both the St. Louis Cardinals and Arizona Diamondbacks, and sure enough, that’s played out over the last few days. Jordan Hicks came back from a few days off due to illness to nail down the Cards’ 7-5 win in the London Series finale on Sunday, while Scott McGough got four outs to earn his fourth straight save for the Snakes. There doesn’t appear to be any drama about the pecking orders right now, especially with Ryan Helsley not even starting a throwing program yet for St. Louis.
• Jose Alvarado has yet to regain his dominant form since returning from an elbow injury earlier this month, getting used in the seventh inning with the Philadelphia Phillies down 5-3 on Sunday. Alvarado allowed two baserunners and another earned run, while Craig Kimbrel continues to excel in the ninth inning; this appears to be Kimbrel’s job moving forward, with Seranthony Dominguez on the shelf and Alvarado and Gregory Soto too unreliable to trust.
• Just when we thought Clay Holmes was back in the driver’s seat for the New York Yankees, Aaron Boone starts mixing and matching again. At this point, it seems like the only constant is that Boone will turn to Holmes during the highest-leverage moment of the late innings, whether that’s in the seventh or the eighth or the ninth. Michael King bounced back from a rough outing Saturday to pick up the save on Sunday, while Tommy Kahnle and Ron Marinaccio also figure to get save opportunities.
• The Washington Nationals, on the other hand, appear to have settled for good on Hunter Harvey as their man in the ninth. Kyle Finnegan, Harvey’s one-time committee-mate, hasn’t recorded a save since late May, while Harvey and his triple-digits fastball notched two just this week. He comes with real blow-up potential, and the Nats aren’t exactly swimming in save opportunities, but he should be rostered in just about every league given his job security (at least for now).
• With Kendall Graveman struggling through a 28-pitch outing on Saturday and Liam Hendriks on the shelf, it was Keynan Middleton — not Reynaldo Lopez — who got the call in the ninth for the Chicago White Sox on Sunday, and he came through with his second straight perfect inning. Hendriks’ future is unknown — he hasn’t even started throwing yet, and the team will obviously want to play it safe with him — and Middleton might be throwing the ball the best out of any of the Sox’ relievers.