Closer Monkey's Leverage Ledger | 3.24.2026
Aroldis Chapman's spring, changes in Pittsburgh, and co-closers in Texas
Adding another team into the mix of a matchup-based approach, manager Don Kelly will not reserve Dennis Santana, or any other reliever, for the ninth inning this season, at least at the start.
Texas will have a co-closer concept, and our introduction looks at Aroldis Chapman’s results this spring.
Spring recaps feature:
AL: CLE | HOU | KC | LAA | MIN
NL: ARI | CHC | CIN | LAD | MIL | PHI | STL | WSH
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Looking for opinions and / or advanced knowledge on future closers. Will Garrett Cleavinger get his fare share of saves? Is Matt Svanson the best are in the Cardinals Bullpen and will he be the closer at some point this season? Is the Giants Joel Peguero the future closer and when will he be ready to pitch this year? What do you think of the possibility of the Athletics Jamie Arnold being the closer later on in the year. The A's are noted for making starting pitchers into elite closers. Looking forward to a chat on this matter.
One of the baseball writers should do an article (with statistical reference if possible) about the effects on the psyche of a RP being used in a committee or similar role, compared to someone that is the lone Closer with that Closer mentality. Over the years we've seen solid Closers that don't pitch well in the eight inning, or in these so-called "high leverage situations". Once they went back to pitching in a traditional Closer role, they pitched better. There may not be many cases with a lot of statistical reference, due to HL situation being only a few years old, but if you've watched baseball for some years, you realize the validity to this topic.