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Closers

With bail season likely to be going full throttle by week's end, I decided to examine the salaries of the closers in my AL- only leagues to determine if I can learn anything of use during the bail season.

Here is a list of the current closers and the bold-faced ones are the ones who were drafted.

NYY  Mariano Rivera $49
BOS   Jon Papelbon $5
BAL   Chris Ray $10
TB    Brian Meadows $9
TOR   BJ Ryan $6

DET   Todd Jones $24
CHW   Bobby Jenks $5
MIN   Joe Nathan $32
CLE   Bob Wickman $1
KC    Ambiorix Burgos $10

OAK   Huston Street $12
TEX   Akinori Otsuka $4
SEA   JJ Putz $5
ANA   Francsico Rodriguez $16

Three of the fourteen current closers were drafted.  (I understand there is an analogous survivorship bias involved but for simplicity...)

What this demonstrates to me is that teams who are bailing should look to add potential closers in trades if the current closers are not available, and a look at the salries shows that they actual closers are likely bail targets already.

While I do not recommend bail trades like AROd for Carig Hansen, I do recommend including potential closers as the filler to make positions fit.

If the bail trade is structured correctly, the acquiring teams should already feel good about the haul and not object too strenously to the inclusion of Pat Neshek or Raphael Soriano.