Saves, Saves and More Saves
June 30, 2009
One of the more interesting sub-plots from the 2009 fantasy baseball season have been the closers. Recently, I was perusing the year-to-date statistics and was amazed when I looked at the league leaders in saves. As of June 30, there are a staggering 18 closers with at least 14 saves. Although that stat immediately jumped off the page, the following stat is even more impressive: there are 13 closers with at least 18 saves. I cannot remember a time when so many closers had this many saves through the end of June. Not surprising, some of the names on this list are familiar: K-Rod, Nathan, Papelbon and Rivera. However, this list also includes guys we are not accustomed to seeing in the top level of the category, guys that probably went too late in drafts or went undrafted altogether: Franklin, Rodney and Aardsma. To try and put this in perspective, in a standard 10-team league which starts 2 closers, it is possible that 18 out of the 20 starting closers have at least 14 saves. Truly unreal!
People should not construe this article as delivering a “don’t take closers early” message. That is certainly not my intention. In fact, I am usually one of those guys that prefers to select a #1 closer fairly early; usually a guy ranked in my preseason top 8. I find it even more important to secure a strong #2 closer (usually a guy ranked in the top 13). For instance, this year I snagged Broxton as my #1 and picked up Heath Bell later on. Over the years, this strategy has worked for me.
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I agree with your closer strategy. All the closer haters out there miss the fact that saves counts as much as any other category, and two bona fide closers help your team a ton.
I was surprised too. Especially when I saw Heath Bell and Brian Fuentes (who started off terribly) were at the tops of the list.