Seth Maness

After emerging as one of the Cardinals' best relief pitchers in 2013, Maness repeated that performance in 2014 as he was arguably the team's most consistent arm out of the bullpen. Maness doesn't miss a lot of bats but he doesn't necessarily try to, throwing his fastball only 15 percent of the time in his two years with the Cardinals, opting to throw his sinker (55%) and changeup (19.5%) more often while also mixing in the occasional slider and curveball. While strikeouts are nice, Maness does an excellent job keeping hitters off balance and inducing the groundball (61.5% for his career), and his career xFIP of 3.16 also points to him being the real deal as a quality bullpen arm. His fantasy value is limited, but he will accumulate some holds and a few saves and is always a deep sleeper for the closer job should it open up via injuries or poor performance.

Maness was another talented young arm to emerge for the Cardinals in 2013, as the young righty threw 62 innings in relief while racking up 15 holds and a 5-2 record while posting a 2.32 ERA and a BB/9 under 2.0. Maness induced more double plays (16) than any other relief pitcher in baseball, excelling at getting the Cards out of jams. An extreme groundball pitcher, Maness should remain an effective option out of the bullpen for the Cardinals and could develop into a quality source of holds.