The ERA‑Based Tier System
Every Sunday, the fantasy baseball community watches the waiver wire for the latest relief pitcher additions, and this week the focus shifted to a handful of under‑the‑radar closers such as Grant Taylor and Andrew Kittredge.
What sets this year’s analysis apart is a move away from gut feeling toward a reproducible framework that treats rest‑of‑season relief pitcher projections as the backbone of valuation.
The author begins by gathering the median projected ERA for the current week, which sits at 4.28 with a standard deviation of 0.48, and then carves the population into five tiers — Great, Good, Average, Below‑Average, and Poor — using clear cut‑offs.
The 'Great' tier captures any arm with a projected ERA below 3.31, while the 'Good' bracket runs from 3.31 to 3.80, the 'Average' slot from 3.80 to 4.28, the 'Below‑Average' range from 4.28 to 4.76, and the 'Poor' category anything above 4.76.
Weekly Refresh of the Model
By mapping each reliever onto these bands, the model produces rankings that line up closely with the author’s original intuition; no pitcher was mis‑rated by more than a single slot.
The process is not static. Each Monday the author publishes an updated Waiver Wire and FAAB report, refining the categories as fresh projections arrive and keeping the valuations in lockstep with on‑field performance.
Behind the methodology are several voices from the baseball analytics ecosystem, including Jeff Zimmerman, a veteran author of The Process and a multiple‑time winner of the SABR Analytics Research Award, the FSWA Awards, Tout Wars, and LABR, as well as Bill Petti, Kevin Kelly, and the rest of the research team.
The model also brings into the conversation a roster of active relievers such as Grant Taylor, Andrew Kittredge, Clayton Beeter, Caleb Kilian, Trent Thornton, Jacob Webb, Tyler Wells, Jordan Romano, Michael Petersen, Luke Weaver, Garrett Whitlock, Andrew Morris, Garrett Cleavinger, Kevin Kelly, Jeff Zimmerman, and Bill Petti, each of whom receives a tier designation that informs waiver decisions.
For readers who rely on sites like FanGraphs, RotoGraphs, The Hardball Times, Rotowire, Baseball America, BaseballHQ, SABR, FSWA, Tout Wars, LABR, and NFBC for their data, the new categories provide a common language that bridges traditional scouting and advanced statistics.