Closer Rankings (7/2/19)

July 2, 2019

From now until the trade deadline at the month’s end, I will be publishing a weekly post on overall closer rankings. The focus is not the best closers, but the combination of talent, opportunity, the chance of being traded, other bullpen arms, and mainly accumulating Saves. These rankings could change on a dime but at least they provide some structure for speculating on Saves.

I find the rumor mill boring but usually where there is smoke, there is fire. For that reason, I’m basing the chances of being traded on MLBTraderumors and The Athletic’s most likely traded lists. If they are wrong, I’m wrong.

Here are the ranks so let the complaining begin.

Rank	Tier	Name	Notes
1	Studs (won’t be replaced)	Craig Kimbrel
2		Kenley Jansen
3		Josh Hader
4		Roberto Osuna
5		Aroldis Chapman
6		Brad Hand
7		Carlos Martinez	Tough to place, could be down at #18
8	Studs who may be traded	Kirby Yates
9		Edwin Diaz
10		Will Smith
11		Felipe Vazquez
12	Decent but could add a stud	Sean Doolittle
13		Hector Neris
14		Shawn Kelley
15		Hansel Robles
16		Taylor Rogers
17		Greg Holland
18	OK and likely to be traded	Ken Giles
19		Shane Greene
20		Alex Colome
21		Sergio Romo
22		Ian Kennedy
23	Uhhh … they have a job for now	Raisel Iglesias	Lorenzen may already have the role
24		Scott Oberg
25		Emilio Pagan
26		Luke Jackson
27		Liam Hendriks	Treinen and he could change spots this week
28		Brandon Workman
29		Mychal Givens
30		Roenis Elias
31	Knocking on the door for a job	Blake Treinen
32		Nathan Eovaldi
33		Michael Lorenzen
34		Hunter Strickland	Could close once off the IL
35		Joe Jimenez
36		Kyle Crick
37		A.J. Minter	I believe Atlanta will add a closer which limits his value
38		Craig Stammen
39		Tony Watson
40		Wade Davis
41		Jose Alvarado
42		Diego Castillo
43	Top of line if the closer is traded	Aaron Bummer
44		Nick Anderson
45		Joe Biagini
46		Reyes Moronta
47	Stud backups with good ratios	Chris Martin	Gets some Saves
48		Ryan Pressly
49		John Gant
50		Ty Buttrey
52		Adam Ottavino
53	Dart throws	Matt Barnes
54		Trevor May
55		Fernando Rodney
56		Jose Leclerc	He could be higher, a tough situation to guage
57		Miguel Castro
58		Sam Dyson
59		Daniel Hudson
60		Amir Garrett
61		Richard Bleier
62		Kevin McCarthy

Updated: 7/2 in the afternoon

BAL	CHW	LAA
BOS	CLE	OAK
NYY	DET	SEA
TBR	KCR	TEX
TOR	MIN	HOU

ATL	CHC*	ARI
MIA	CIN	COL
WSN	MIL	LAD
NYM*	PIT	SDP*
PHI	STL	SFG