Closer Identifier Algorithm Predictions June 10

It was a mixed week for CIA as it racked up a hit on Brian Fuentes, who lost his closer job for the second time this season, and perhaps the final time of his career. But, it also added a miss on Dale Thayer, who ceded his job to incumbent Huston Street.

As with the other misses, all have easy explanations, and the question then becomes whether to add a criterion for these explanations. In Thayer’s case we might add a criterion for pitchers that are keeping the seat warm for an injured incumbent. However, part of the value of a system like this is avoiding those judgmental lapses and logical fallacies that arise when we try to do a full-fledged analysis.

CIA is dispassionate and ruthless. It was possible that Thayer might have held the job; and with a lot of closers coming back from injuries, job loss etc. we want to identify situations where the temp may be better than the incumbent.

So, we will not make a chance to the criteria based on place-holders. Two situations to watch in this regard are the Yankees with David Robertson on the comeback trail, and in Washington with Drew Storen. CIA says Soriano will lose the job as of this writing, but he is 9-9 in SVO% and is one save away from “hold” status. If these injured incumbents grab their jobs back when they return then we will add a criterion, but for the single case of Thayer/Street we will not.

Here is the latest spreadsheet:

Pitcher	CIA result	Reason for Change/Comments
Jim Johnson	Hold
Alfredo Aceves	Hold
Addison Reed	Hold
Chris Perez	Hold
Jose Valverde	Lose
Jon Broxton	Lose
Ernesto Frieri	Hold
Matt Capps	Lose
Rafael Soriano	Lose	one save away from “hold” status
Brian Fuentes	Lose	Lost job second time–Hit
Ryan Cook	Lose	BABIP only .130-Added
Grant Balfour	Lose	Added
Tom Wilhelmsen	Hold	Added
Fernando Rodney	Hold
Joe Nathan	Hold
Casey Janssen	Hold
JJ Putz	Hold	Skills are rock solid per CIA
Craig Kimbrel	Hold
James Russell	Lose
Shawn Camp	Hold	No saves yet-role in flux-Russell weak
Aroldis Chapman	Hold
Rafael Betancourt	Hold
Brett Myers	Lose
Kenley Jansen	Hold
Heath Bell	Lose
Steve Cishek	Hold
John Axford	Hold
Frank Francisco	Hold	Solidifying “hold” status
Jon Papelbon	Hold
Joel Hanrahan	Lose	BS drops SV% < 95% but skills close to “hold”
Dale Thayer	Hold	Lost job on Street return-MISS
Huston Street	Hold
Santiago Casilla	Hold
Jason Motte	Hold	BARELY meets CIA criteria
Tyler Clippard	Hold	Will he hold off Storen?


Hits	Misses
Hector Santiago	Sean Marshall
Scott Downs	Steve Cishek
Jordan Walden	Dale Thayer
Brian Fuentes
Rafael Dolis
Heath Bell
Scott Downs
Henry Rodriguez
Carlos Marmol
Javy Guerra
Grant Balfour
Brandon League
Brian Fuentes second time