Hansel Robles (RP, LAA) - Week 8 Waiver Wire Pickups

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OWNED IN: 35% of leagues

ANALYSIS: The Los Angeles Angels had a rough start to the 2019 season at the back end of the bullpen, demoting veteran closer Cody Allen for a head-clearing and soon looking to 28-year old Hansel Robles in high-leverage situations. While there is a surprisingly stocked cast of candidates behind him in the Angels bullpen in the form of Ty Buttrey, Cam Bedrosian, Noe Ramirez, and Luke Bard, Robles has continued to mostly anchor the pack with a 3.60 ERA and 0.95 WHIP in 20.0 IP. He has been producing 0.9 HR/9 (a marginal improvement on his career-average of 1.2), with fantastic BB/9 and K/9 figures of 2.3 and 9.9, which culminate in a 2.97 FIP to speak to the over-inflated nature of his current ERA.

Though he still allows a persistent rate of hard contact, he appears to be forcing a high-volume of irrelevant fly balls as evidenced by his GB/FB ratio going from 0.84 to 0.73 while his infield fly ball rate climbed to 11.5%, while his impressive pitching arsenal appears to be keeping batters bewildered. With a fastball touching 97 MPH and a slider clocked at 89.3, "El Penaco" has earned his uptick in outside-swing rate (28.4%) and swinging-strike percentage 11.6%). Keep in mind, the competition in the bullpen has remained starch. So much so that in fact, Buttrey notched a 1.2 inning save for the Angels on Saturday during an evening that could've just as easily been placed in the hands of Robles, and that doesn't even account for the fact that Allen is looking for redemption. While this may actually be the complicated workings of a committee situation playing out, the five saves and two holds that he has should speak to the share of save chances Robles will likely land moving forward, giving him robust value across the board.