Grilli, yes; Hanrahan, no

Monday, 18 March 2013 04:45 PM Written by 

Jay Jaffe cites three relievers he think will have good years and three who will not.  Neal Huntington will be thrilled.

By Jay Jaffe, SI.com

It’s closing time! Over the past two weeks, I’ve rolled out a new position-by-position series, offering my personal picks for hitters I expect to break out (“Booms”) or decline (“Busts”) in 2013. Having gone all the way around the diamond and throughthe starting pitchers, it’s time to finish off with the relievers, and naturally, my attention is mostly (but not entirely) focused on those who will see at least a share of the ninth-inning duties.

As with the hitters, I don’t have hard-and-fast criteria for including these relievers on my lists, and I won’t promise that they’ll help you rule your fantasy league — or conversely, that they’ll lead you to the league’s basement. These aren’t particularly fantasy-targeted assessments, though my focus on strikeout rates and whether these hurlers can hold onto their ninth-inning jobs lends itself to the format better than most of my other entries in this series.

These are established players whom I’ve studied and have reasons for earmarking for better or worse. Particularly favorable or unfavorable projections, ERA estimators pointing in the wrong direction, changed circumstances such as trades, new roles and recoveries from injury may all come into play. The players here are listed alphabetically within each category.

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