Today on ESPN 1500, Jeff Dubay has been arguing that the Twins closer is top 5 & is astonished he was only added to all star game as an injury replacement to Jessie Crain. He is very solid but without a full yr as a closer & finishing for one of MLB worst teams doesn't do it for me.

Where do you rank him??

 

I have

Rivera

Kimbrell

Chapman

Nathan

Soriano

Papelbon

Balfour

Promo

Ahead of Glen but arguable

Grill I

Frieri

Johnson

Rodney

Edited July 8, 201313 yr by greengoblinrulz

Looking at his numbers, I don't think you can really make an argument that he's not elite. If the Twins were a better team he'd probably be in the discussion for tops in the game.

I don't know how you decide. There's both the longevity question and also the "losing team question."

 

Is the pressure the same closing for a team going nowhere as it is for a contender? (Honestly I don't know the answer to that - in some ways you could argue that it is more because they don't get as many opportunities but I still think there must be added pressure when you are really in a race.)

Perkins is very good. I just don't think that there's enough evidence to decide whether he is top 5.

If he can continue his stat line for the next 2 years, then I'll believe it.

He's only been the closer for about a full year now.

I'm a huge believer in him but he just haant had the time in as well as closing any games that matter

If the All Star teams were truly just chosen on current year performance, then he would have a great argument that Perkins should be in no matter what. To say that Perkins is top 5 muddies the waters a bit because of the longevity question. The other point is that there are a lot of great closers so somewhat like defining an "ace" it gets tough to draw the line. Among the list above there are a bunch of guys who I think are pretty close.