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Kyle Bishop profiles AL RP Anthony Swarzak as a waiver wire pickup and add in Week 2 of the 2019 MLB season.
BALLER MOVE: Add in All Leagues
OWNED IN: 34% of leagues
ANALYSIS: Why recommend a 33-year-old reliever with middling ratios (4.30 ERA, 1.34 WHIP) and a pedestrian strikeout rate (6.6 K/9) over nearly 600 career innings? Because, to paraphrase the Wu-Tang Clan, saves rule everything around us.
Hunter Strickland's lat strain opened the door to another Mariners reliever seizing the closer role. The options, to put it mildly, are not inspiring - why else would Strickland have entered the season as the primary ninth-inning guy? - but Swarzak may be the best bet of the bunch. After signing with the Mets as a free agent prior to last season, the veteran struggled mightily through an injury-riddled campaign and was included to balance the salaries a bit in the Robinson Cano/Edwin Diaz swap this winter. Despite the difficulties he experienced in 2018, Swarzak largely maintained the surge in strikeout rate he had enjoyed in 2017.
Assuming health, he has a golden opportunity to take control of the ninth in the Emerald City - but still remains unowned in roughly two-thirds of Yahoo leagues. Owners scrounging for saves could do a lot worse.
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