Paul Sewald

Sewald finally got the opportunity to be a primary closer in 2023 thanks to his consistent performance in high leverage over the past few seasons. He racked up a career-high 34 saves -- 21 with Seattle, plus another 13 after his trade to Arizona -- good for seventh in the majors. His team save share with both the Mariners and D'Backs was above 80%, which combined would have ranked fourth overall among closers. Combine this with perennially solid ratios and strikeout rate near 30% and Sewald is right on the brink of being a top-10 closer. Realistically, he'll settle in the 11-15 range among closers for 2024 drafts, but there's comfort in knowing what to expect from Sewald. The 33-year-old gave up more contact last season, but his hard-hit rate and average exit velocity were both in the 94th percentile or better. Sewald shouldn't have much competition for saves for the defending National League champions as along as he puts his World Series struggles behind him.

Sewald built on his 2021 breakout season to lead Seattle with a career high 20 saves last year. This represented 50% of the team's overall save total (40), which is unusually high for a club that deploys a closer committee. The 32-year-old boasted a career-best 0.77 WHIP that was fifth-best among qualified relievers. However, Sewald's home run problem (1.4 HR/9) persisted thanks to an extreme flyball rate. This also resulted in an unsustainably low .158 BABIP. While Sewald averaged a career-best 92.5 mph on his 4-seamer, he threw his slider at the highest rate of his career, nearly 50% of the time. Both pitches were effective, but his strikeout rate plummeted to 29.8%, a nearly 10 percent difference from 2021. It will be interesting to see how the Mariners manage the back-end of their bullpen moving forward. As a team on the rise, it's possible they give more save chances to Andres Munoz, who recently signed a long-term deal and was the league's breakout reliever last year.

After four uninspiring seasons with the Mets, Sewald had a breakout year with the Mariners. He failed to make Seattle's Opening Day roster, but the right-hander impressed after his mid-May promotion to become part of Scott Servais' three-headed closer committee. Home runs were a concern (1.4 HR/9), but Sewald was extremely valuable in high-leverage, going 10-3 with 11 saves, 16 holds and excellent ratios. Both his 39.4% strikeout rate and 30.3% K-BB% ranked fifth among qualified relievers. Prior to 2021, Sewald hadn't posted a strikeout rate above 27.5%. So what changed? He began throwing from a lower arm slot, which affected the location of his fastball and angle at which it crossed home plate. This resulted in a 33% whiff percentage on the pitch after previously topping out at 21.1%. Seattle's bullpen is stacked, but Sewald should continue to receive a decent share of save chances in the committee.

Sewald uses a cross-fire delivery and lower arm slot to throw a fastball that can't stay straight along with a tight slider to generate more strikeouts than one would expect from a pitcher with pedestrian fastball velocity. He struck out 74 batters in 70.2 innings of work between Triple-A and the majors last year, most of which came while pitching in the minors. He has struck out 24.5% of the hitters he has faced in a major-league career that spans 141.1 innings, and his 16.8 K-BB% is good for a middle reliever. The issue here is he doesn't have enough stuff to close, but he does have a spot in a major-league bullpen as long as he can command his stuff. He is an extreme flyball pitcher, so homers are always going to be part of the package.

Sewald's ERA jumped from 4.55 all the way up to an ugly 6.07. He was demoted on two separate occasions, but the struggling Mets nevertheless needed to call on him for 56.1 innings over the course of the season. His performance dipped across the board, with his strikeout rate (22.9%) and walk rate (9.1%) both went in the wrong direction from his rookie season. Those numbers definitely aren't impressive, though they're more in line with a below-average reliever than a terrible one, so his ballooning ERA can be attributed in part to a .331 BABIP and a 62.8% strand rate, both of which are likely to regress this season. Even with that regression, however, Sewald is unlikely to have much value, as a non-closing reliever with a mediocre strikeout rate doesn't offer much to excite fantasy owners.

Selected in the 10th round of the 2012 draft, Sewald successfully hurled his way through the lower levels of the minor leagues over the past several years, posting sub-2.00 ERAs in both Single-A and Double-A ball. The 6-foot-3 righty -- whose fastball sits in the low 90s -- opened the 2017 campaign with Triple-A Las Vegas but quickly received a big-league promotion one week into the season. The 27-year-old went on to log 65.1 innings of bullpen work, the most among any Mets reliever. He closed the year with a 4.55 ERA and 69:21 K:BB while being primarily utilized in a middle-relief role. He’ll be a key component in the Mets’ bullpen again in 2018 but doesn’t figure to move the needle much in the fantasy realm, as he’s unlikely to see many as many hold opportunities following the team’s offseason acquisition of Anthony Swarzak.