Drafting a reliable closer can be as unpredictable as the weather forecast. The success of Ryan Franklin is one of many examples of being able to find saves after the draft. This week's Clearing The Bases column reports on the state of some of the current team closer situations.
Back in March when it was time to draft your fantasy team, I advised the following, "don't draft a closer too early or spend too much of your cap on one". The reason for this is simple, a good portion of pitchers that start the season as a closer, will not finish as one. I'm going to go over quite a few of them here, and this column will not even talk about the closers who are injured.
B. J. Ryan started the season as the closer for Toronto, but it didn't take long for him to have health problems once again and now Scott Downs is the man. Downs is not your prototypical closer in that he doesn't throw extremely hard, but he does seem to have the mentality for the job - and more importantly, has not faulted since given the chance.
It also shouldn't come as any surprise that Troy Percival once again broke down. He was so despondent that he was contemplating retiring after his latest setback. He's not anymore, as he is expecting to return when he is back in good health. Whereas Downs in Toronto has a pretty good lock on the closers job, no one in Tampa has grabbed the role by the throat and Percival is still likely to see some save opportunities. Randy Choate is the closer now, which is scary. Choate is nothing more than a left handed journeymen. One has to wonder if Tampa should use one of their younger pitchers in this role.
Read the full article here: http://thefantasysportsforum.com/article.php?ID=5
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