Why Not Collect Some Closers?

An idea came to me last night for a set I'd like to start pulling together. I'm going to guess my idea is in no way unique, radical or even interesting to most of you pros. That said, I have an unorthodox level of admiration for the closer, and always have. It probably goes back to the days of watching Greg Minton and/or Gary Lavelle mop up for the late 70s San Francisco Giants - when they'd win or be winning, of course - and then, as the role morphed from afterthought "fireman" to bonafide pitching stud, seeing guys like Trevor Hoffman, Dennis Eckersley, Lee Smith and Rod Beck come in with a slim lead in the 9th and just dominate. So much fun. I even counted Eric Gagne - of the Dodgers! - as one of my favorite players for a while.

So the set I'm going to start building right now, today, is one of "closers who saved more than 45 games at least once". Why 45? Because "40", which I was originally going to do, has too many guys on it. 45's a little more manageable. You get all the heroes I just mentioned, plus some dudes I don't even remember. Jeff Shaw? Mike Williams? Antonio Alfonseca? Duane Ward? Who dat? It'll be fun to find out if I ever knew who those guys were. (I've forgotten a few things over the years, kids).

My rules for this set are simple. I only need to grab two cards for each guy. One can be a nice-looking base card, not necessarily from the year in which they saved 45 (some guys, of course, saved 45 or more multiple times). The other card needs to be a little more special - like this Topps 150 card for Gagne, for example - or perhaps something with a relic, an autograph, a Chrome version or what have you. If I start with, say, a shitty-looking Donruss card of Bobby Thigpen (I have one of those now), I'll need to upgrade it to a nicer base card, then look for a "special" Thigpen card to compliment it before I can say "I did it. I got all the Thigpens I need". That's it. Just the two.

I'm starting from practically zero, honestly. I just thought of this wacky, crazy, cuckoo idea last night. What an epiphany! Anyone who wants to help out with this and likes tradin', well, I like tradin' too. My contact form is to your right on my sidebar.

Here are the 49 guys who saved 45 at least once in their careers!

• Francisco Rodriguez
• Edwin Diaz
• Bobby Thigpen
• Eric Gagne
• John Smoltz
• Trevor Hoffman
• Randy Myers
• Mariano Rivera
• Rod Beck
• Dennis Eckersley
• Jeurys Familia
• Jim Johnson
• Marc Melancon
• Craig Kimbrel
• Francisco Cordero
• Jose Valverde
• Brian Fuentes
• Fernando Rodney
• Trevor Rosenthal
• Jeff Shaw
• Brian Wilson
• Heath Bell
• Armando Benitez
• Zack Britton
• Alex Colome
• Chad Cordero
• Greg Holland
• Jason Isringhausen
• Kenley Jansen
• Joe Nathan
• Lee Smith
• John Axford
• Tom Gordon
• Bryan Harvey
• Jose Mesa
• Dave Righetti
• Mike Williams
• Antonio Alfonseca
• Joe Borowski
• Eddie Guardado
• Jeff Montgomery
• Robb Nen
• J.J. Putz
• Dan Quisenberry
• Kazuhiro Sasaki
• Rafael Soriano
• Bruce Sutter
• Duane Ward
• Bob Wickman

Love to see that J.J. Putz made the cut. I'm just super-bummed that Aurelio López - who was awesome, and known as "Señor Smoke" when I first saw him - never saved 45. I might just have to collect him anyway. Check out this article on him from Wax Pack Gods.