August Reliever Rankings

Welcome to the post-trade deadline edition of the player rankings. As always, players are ranked for the rest of the season based on 5x5 mixed-league value.

Click to see other August rankings:

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

Relief pitcher rankings

Dropping off: Tanner Rainey (19th), Michael Fulmer (32nd), Emilio Pagan (34th), Will Smith (43rd), Ken Giles (44th), Lou Trivino (47th), Jeff Hoffman (54th), Michael King (56th)

• Not quite as many closers changed hands at the deadline as expected, but these rankings still received a nice shakeup. The stunner was Raisel Iglesias, in the first year of a four-year, $58 million deal, getting sent to the Braves to serve as a setup man. He's down to 45th here. Ryan Tepera, the new favorite for saves on the Angels, is 22nd. Devin Williams cracked the top 10 after the surprising Josh Hader-Taylor Rogers swap opened up the closing gig in Milwaukee.

• It figured that the Cubs would trade David Robertson, Mychal Givens and Chris Martin, which is why I ranked Scott Effross 48th last month. Little did I know that Effross, who is in his first full season, would also be shipped out, leaving the Cubs without their top four relievers. That puts Rowan Wick back in position for saves for the third consecutive August. Wick, though, hasn't impressed in giving up 27 runs - 21 earned - in 43 1/3 innings. Erich Uelmen was the other Cubs reliever I considered ranking here, though he ended up not cracking the top 80. I wonder if we might see Justin Steele or Keegan Thompson wind up with some save chances in September. Both starters have already exceeded their 2021 outputs and likely will require some workload management, especially Steele.

• The Marlins are staying committed to Tanner Scott for now, but Dylan Floro has allowed just an unearned run over his last 12 appearances. Scott has given up nine runs - seven earned - with 13 walks in 12 2/3 innings during the same timeframe.

• Based on how he threw in his return from the IL on Thursday, Dany Jiménez appears poised to return to the closer's role in Oakland. The A's were using Lou Trivino as a closer before including him in the Frankie Montas deal with the Yankees.

• Jonathan Hernández seems to have earned manager Chris Woodward's faith in Texas, even though he's given up 13 hard-hit balls in his first six innings back from Tommy John. His 72% hard-hit rate is nearly twice as high as the league average. Fortunately, most of those balls were on the ground, and he's allowed just two runs. Hernandez is the Rangers' most talented reliever, and while there will likely be some bumps along the way, he might be a capable closer over the rest of the season. I'll feel better about him next year than I do right now.