If you are in a highly competitive league that stretches the talent pool, such as a 13-Team NL-Auction League, a 12-Team AL-Auction League, or a 15-Team NFBC Main Event League, you may be able to improve your overall draft by realizing an untapped resource, the MLB Middle Reliever.

If you were in the 15^th round of a deep and had back-to-back picks, which two players would you choose? Mike Mussina and Joe Blanton or Russ Springer and Aaron Heilman?

Instinctively, I think most owners would be select the two starting pitchers:

However, if you look what the average statistics of the top 145 pitchers to be drafted in a deep league, maybe you’d have a different opinion:

Notice that the number of strikeouts of the starting pitchers is not much greater than the average pitcher. Also note that most good starting pitchers convert only 50% of their starts into wins. All of those innings usually lead to higher an ERA and WHIP. Therefore, good starting pitchers will out-perform the average pitcher in Wins and Strikeouts but will likely under-achieve in ERA and WHIP.

Now, look how two top middle relievers are likely to perform in 2008:

In a rotisserie, where all categories are equally weighted, the middle relievers who excel in ERA and WHIP can be far more valuable than a sub-par starting pitcher, and top middle relievers can be drafted 5 to 10 rounds later, and in most cases they will likely end up being free agents.

If you are in a very competitive league where scoring well across all categories is crucial to being competitive, then you actually need to consider using middle relievers to lower your staff ERA and WHIP. A positive boost to your draft value that results from bypassing some of the mediocre starting pitchers in the middle rounds for late round middle relievers is your ability to add depth to your hitting. By getting extra depth in hitting and late round value in ERA and WHIP, you can improve your overall draft value.

Another advantage of drafting middle relievers late in the draft is that it provides you with a better opportunity to select free agent pitchers during the season. Teams that select starting pitchers in the middle to late rounds will feel compelled to use and hold onto struggling pitchers early in the season to justify their draft selection and draft value. This will allow teams with no vested interest in keeping their underachievers from pulling the trigger on a promising free agent throughout the year. I fell into this trap last year, and it prevented me from winning my NFBC league. If you invest a top 15 round pick on a pitcher like Chris Capuano, Mike Mussina, or other high potential starter who had a disappointing season in 2007, then you are likely to ride out the rough starts early in the season, which could put you into a deficit that your team will not recoup.

Now, in fantasy point leagues, middle relievers are rarely going to be used, because fantasy point leagues focusing on accumulating stats and ignore the impact of poor percentages. RotoRank now allows you to easily identify middle relievers, so you can ignore them during your draft in favor of starting pitchers that can get two start weeks that allow you to use the pitcher rotation techniques.

In summary, middle relievers could be an untapped source of value in your league, but you need to understand the dynamics of your league. In fantasy point and smaller rotisserie leagues, you will be less likely to utilize a middle reliever; however, owners in larger leagues can actually build a better team by identifying key middle relievers late in the draft as a substitute for selecting low-end starting pitchers earlier in the draft.