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2013 Red Sox community projections: Another closer?

The Red Sox have a closer. And another. And three more guys who could do the job. After all is said and done, who will have emerged as Boston's go-to reliever?

By Ben Buchanan
USA TODAY Sports

We've done the starters, we've done the closer. We could do the bullpen. But it's not a lot of fun to predict the performances of individual pen members. So let's take this in a slightly different direction.

Today, Red Sox fans, I ask you to predict how the closing situation pans out for the 2013 Red Sox.

This is a team with a lot of viable options in the back end of the pen. It would not be entirely surprising to see any of Joel Hanrahan, Andrew Bailey, Koji Uehara, or even Junichi Tazawa and Daniel Bard finishing close games come September. Each one has the potential to be a truly dominant reliever, and each has question marks that would suggest some level of shifting is inevitable.

We're not going to get super in-depth on this one statistically. It would be silly to compile a bunch of projections on a bunch of different players depending on who any given individual thought would end up taking over (or simply retaking Hanrahan predictions for those who expect him to stick). So, instead, let's just stick to some basic questions:

  1. Is Joel Hanrahan going to stick at closer?
  2. If not, who will take over for him, and when?
  3. Who is the setup man/fireman come September?

That's it. No fancy forms, probably no 2014 recap with arbitrary points being awarded. Just throw out your prediction so that, in a few month's time, you can say "I told you so." Hopefully not because you predicted the plague of Gagne sweeping through the bullpen making everyone terrible.

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