RADIO
BALLER MOVE: Target end of your draft or ~275, whichever comes first
CURRENT ADP: 344
ANALYSIS: Miami Marlins closer Brad Ziegler is not a flashy pickup. He is not going to overwhelm anyone with strikeouts like Craig Kimbrel, induce a ridiculous amount of ground balls like Zach Britton, or blow teams away with a triple-digit fastball like Aroldis Chapman. In spite of that, he can still be a very valuable asset to your fantasy team this season, especially considering that he is going outside of the top 300 players right now.
Ziegler is currently slotted in as the Marlins 9th inning man to begin the year. Though he plays for a terrible team, he will still get save opportunities. Even the San Francisco Giants, who finished with the worst record in 2017, afforded their bullpen 54 save opportunities, so Ziegler will get his.
Opportunity trumps talent on some occasions and this rings as true as ever in Ziegler's case. His sinker sits in the mid-80s with decent movement, so it is clear from that alone that Ziegler's stuff is not exactly the cream of the crop when it comes to relievers. The good part is that because of his age (38-years-old), the Marlins will want to pump up his trade value before they trade him by showing teams that he can close out games and pitch effectively in the late innings. For this reason, Ziegler is an absolute steal at his ADP.
The best part of the Ziegler situation is that if he gets displaced by Kyle Barraclough (who is actually going slightly higher by ADP) as the closer, you can just cut Ziegler because he cost almost nothing to draft. During the season, you will need to keep an eye out for trade rumors involving Ziegler and get rid of him before he gets traded and loses his value, but until then you can continue to draft him in the late rounds of your drafts and compile cheap saves.
Check out RotoBaller's entire fantasy baseball waiver wire pickups and sleepers list, updated daily!
