If you punt saves in fantasy baseball, you ignore the closer. And how can anyone ignore the lovable, eccentric Brian Wilson?
In all seriousness, there are many who believe you should forsake saves on draft day and load up on the other categories, letting the other owners overpay for closers or take them three or four rounds too early.
In head-to-head leagues, that has a much better chance of working than in rotisserie formats. In the latter, if you finish last in saves for the season in a 12-team league, you earn all of one point in that category, which means you must excel in almost every other category to have a chance to win your league.
The happy medium? Punt saves early, then pounce in the middle and late rounds.
If only we knew what to call this strategy. The First-Down Punt? Save Your Closers for Later? (Thanks, we'll be here all year, and tip your columnist.)
Let's look back at the 2010 season to make our case for punting saves in the first half of the draft.
By my count, nine teams featured closers who lost their jobs -- Arizona, Baltimore, Cleveland, Florida, Houston, the Los Angeles Dodgers, Milwaukee, Minnesota and Toronto.
The Orioles had five closers -- Koji Uehara, Alfredo Simon, Mike Gonzalez, David Hernandez and Jim Johnson. The Diamondbacks had three (Chad Qualls, Juan Gutierrez and Aaron Heilman).
In addition, four teams switched closers because of injuries (the Chicago White Sox, Colorado, Oakland and Philadelphia). Three changed ninth-inning pitchers because of trades (the Angels, Nationals and Pirates), and the Mets did so because theirs, Francisco Rodriguez, was arrested after an attack on his girlfriend's father following a game.
That's 17 of the 30 major-league teams that changed closers during the season.
Then there is this:
The consensus No. 1 closer entering last season was the Dodgers' Jonathan Broxton. He had a 4.04 ERA, 1.48 WHIP and blew seven of his 29 save chances before losing his job to Hong-Chih Kuo.
The Twins' Joe Nathan was a top-three closer, but never pitched in 2010 because of an elbow injury.
The Red Sox's Jonathan Papelbon was a consensus top-five choice at his position, but lost seven games, blew eight saves, had a 3.90 ERA and a 1.27 WHIP.
Rodriguez was also a top-five pick at closer, but he didn't pitch in the final seven weeks of the season. Another top-five reliever, the Yankees' Mariano Rivera, had 33 saves, his fewest since 2007, and 45 strikeouts, his lowest total in that category since 2002.
It's the most volatile position in fantasy baseball, and with so few guarantees, it makes no sense to load up on closers in the first six or seven rounds of any draft.
The top two closers in 2010 -- San Diego's Heath Bell and San Francisco's Wilson -- were ranked in the Nos. 6 to 8 (Bell) or Nos. 9 to 12 range (Wilson) in the preseason. The pair combined to save 95 games in 103 chances and strike out 179 batters in 144 2/3 innings.
Often, there are five to seven relief pitchers selected in the top 100 of a fantasy draft.
A piece of advice: Let the other owners take Rivera in the fifth round.
I wouldn't touch a closer until the rounds reach the double digits, and even then, it might be a tad early.
Fourteen pitchers had 30 or more saves in 2010, a list that included Leo Nunez (30 saves), Kevin Gregg (37) and Matt Capps (42).
Twenty had 25 or more saves, and 29 had at least 20 saves.
Closers will be available as free agents during the season after a teammate loses his job, is traded or injured.
Late-round gems such as Capps will be even more productive than sure-fire Hall of Famers such as Rivera.
If you do your homework, you can select a couple of closers late, and if you hit on one, such as Capps, you'll be competitive enough in saves that you won't have to worry about ignoring that category completely.
Every draft seems to end with an owner boasting about having three stud closers on his team. He'll tell you he's going to win saves every week.
What he won't tell you is he's weak at quite a few other positions because he insisted on taking Brian Wilson and Heath Bell in the fifth and sixth rounds.
More fantasy baseball tips:
- ANALYSIS: How to assign value in rotisserie formats, How to manage your fantasy team in the playoffs
- COMMISSIONERS: How to run a fantasy baseball league
- DRAFTING: Five things you can learn from a mock draft, How to prepare for a draft in one hour, Draft horror stories
- KEEPER LEAGUES: How to choose the best keepers
- TRADING: How to make effective trades
- WAIVER WIRE: Five tips on how to manage the waiver wire
Also see: