August Reliever Rankings

Here are the August reliever rankings. As always, players are ranked based on how I believe they will perform in 5x5 scoring over the rest of the season. Included along with the position rankings you'll find a fully updated top 300 list.

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Click to see other August rankings:

Top 300 | SP | RP | OF | 1B | 2B | SS | 3B | C | DH

Relief pitcher Rankings

Dropping off: Dropping off: Andrew Bailey (No. 26), Vinnie Pestano (No. 36), Francisco Rodriguez (No. 39), David Hernandez (No. 46), Bruce Rondon (No. 51), Hector Ambriz (No. 58), Drew Storen (No. 61), Tommy Hunter (No. 64), Al Alburquerque (No. 67)

• I think Yoervis Medina will prove more reliable than Danny Farquhar and his magic cutter, but the Mariners seem to feel differently at the moment. It's worth noting that the team is currently being run by fill-in manager Robby Thompson, not Eric Wedge, and Wedge might change things up once he rejoins the club. Then again, it's doubtful that he'll mess with anything that's working. As for Tom Wilhelmsen, well, that the Mariners pulled him even though he was 7-for-7 in his save chances since regaining the closer's role shows absolutely zero confidence in him. Most likely, he's through earning saves this year.

• Jose Cisnero was all lined up to replace the sure-to-be-traded Jose Veras in the closer's role for the Astros, but a bad week changed that in a hurry and then he took a blown save in the eighth inning in the Astros' first late-inning lead after Veras was dealt. The Astros may instead pin their hopes of Chia-Jen Lo, who returned from injury to post a 3.24 ERA and a 20/2 K/B ratio in 16 2/3 innings in the minors, but Lo also blew a save chance in the same game than Cisnero did. It might be best just to shy away from the whole situation for now. I'm not much of a fan of Cisnero, and I don't see anyone else at all likely to step up. I doubt they will, but the Astros' best bet might be to sign free agent Brandon Lyon and just hand him the closer's role.

• Kevin Gregg finished July with a 5.79 ERA and an 8/13 K/BB ratio in 14 innings, so no one wanted to deal for him before the deadline. Maybe he'll fetch a lesser prospect later this month, but the Cubs won't be counting on it. I'm in favor of Pedro Strop getting a look in the closer's role in his place, yet it seems as though the Cubs intend to stick with Gregg unless he leaves them no other choice.

• The Diamondbacks seem content to leave things as is, but with J.J. Putz working on a streak of 10 straight scoreless appearances, it'd make a lot of sense to put him back in the closer's role and free up Brad Ziegler to pitch earlier in games. Ziegler should be their go-to guy in the middle of innings with men on base.