The key to not paying for saves is indeed finding them, problem is everyone is on board with vulturing these days. I cant remember more closer changes in year, and its the 2 nd week of may! Shit be crazy.

I tried to pay for saves in my RCL this year because as a teacher that wakes up at 5 AM I'm not able to dominate the waiver wires like I could in college and I knew from last year that saves would be tough to grab in my RCL... I was rewarded with Rivera getting injured and Valverde being terrible. Lesson learned!

This year shows that there's absolutely no guarantee when it comes to closers. There's no such thing as safe or a sure thing. I believe that either 15 or 16 teams have already lost a closer to injury or to extreme suckle and we're not even a month and a half into the season. That's literally half of the closers in the entire league that have already lost their jobs or gotten hurt. A 50% fatality rate isn't something that should make you want to pay even more... Mariano Rivera was probably the absolute epitome of a safe bet at closer coming into this season, having never had a bad year in his career, and even he has fallen victim to this epidemic of dying closers.

You are missing the point by focusing on Mariano Rivera, which was a freak accident. The point is that you knew what you were getting when he trotted out there. Papelbon and Kimbrel, too, to a large degree. Premium closers are worth a mid-round speculative draft pick nowadays.

And count yourself lucky. Combing waivers could have killed your WHIP and ERA.

But what you're missing is that how you just described pap and kem, is exactly how people who drafted brian williams, heath bell, storen, axford, putz, walden, santos, street, bailey, balfour, plus a few more were describing them prior to their melt down or injury.
You are pointing to two people out of a dozen that paid off and saying it makes sense to pay a lot while ignoring the other ten guys where it didn't work. If you want to claim that it's a good idea to pay for closers that actually work out then great I agree with you, but all the evidence seems to point to the fact that it's very hard to predict who will be good from year to year and therefore not a wise investment of your money.

Who said I would pay "a lot"? I said I would pay, period.

Of the guys you listed, these were the ones that were drafted "early":
Axford
Storen
Putz
Santos
Street
Bailey

4 are hurt and not destroying a team's WHIP and ERA. Axford, as Grey mentioned, hasn't been lights-out, but does anyone think his job is in jeopardy?

And damn right I am singling out a few of them. They were the first ones off the board! Kimbrel, Papelbon, and Mo....these guys aren't as unpredictable as kickers are they?

It's an interesting quandry: does all the closer shakiness make shut-down closers more valuable or less valuable because odds are they disasters waiting to happen? As Grey and others have pointed out, odds are that the closer you own has been crap. Only 7 of the possible 30 have been good to great: Kimbrel, Myers, Rodney, Johnson, Paps, Nathan and Betancourt. That's 20%! Horrible, Horrible odds. 5-1 odds that you got a lemon closer when you drafted one. Definitely proves that paying for a closer isn't smart ... but also means that the value of the trustworthy studs (and I would only include Kimbrel, Paps and Betancourt of the above 7) skyrockets, if you think they can continue to defy the odds and remain trustworthy.

You are coming around to my point, but your list is too selective. Here are the next wave of closers that were drafted "early" in my league:

Motte, Hanrahan, League, Jansen, Perez

I'd gladly have sacrificed a mid-round pick for any of them. The success rate is over 50% for that blurry first tier. I'd rather take that chance than have no chance at a good WHIP and ERA. It's like ending one's fantasy season way too early. And over saves, of all things.

The guys that did not buy into this industry-wide mantra are the ones dominating. The guy who grabbed Heath Bell is in first, maybe because he also grabbed Jansen and Papelbon.

Actually, you're missing the point, which is that over half of the closers at the beginning of he season are no longer closers now, not even 1/4th of the way into the season. Why would you pay for such a huge risk? Rivera was a freak injury, but that's the whole point: closers are getting injured at a pretty huge rate compared to other positions, and there's a much higher non-injury turnover rate added to that as well.

I can't think of any logic behind arguing that closepocalypse is proof that you SHOULD pay for a position that is statistically probable to screw you over.

I spent 5 dollars in total for one closer joe nathan, then early in the season when javy guera got the first 3 saves in a row someone dropped jensen and I got him as a free agent. Later when wilson showed signs of an injury I grabbed casilla. In the interim someone dropped andrew bailey and since my league (14 teams) has a DL spot I grabbed him also. So now I have Nathan, Jensen, Casilla, and Bailey and spent basically nothing because I knew closers are about the most risky positions to draft and if you are smart you can get for free what someone else paid through the teeth for. True elite closers are worth high picks, however it's hard to pick who will be elite from year to year, and so your money/pick is better spent elsewhere.
Furthermore if you are trying to put your money where your mouth is you neef to change your offer for axford (or whomever you said you sent an offer for) to include the player you last drafted while axford was still available. Your argument was about paying for closers not about trading present value for them.

OK, Admiral, I won't spend much time trying to convince you since you are so locked in.

Closers that were drafted earlier tended to be much safer with a much lower failure rate. Rather than throw all closers in a big bin and think they all have the same risk, consider that. And factoring Mo's freak injury into your thinking is just ridiculous. Factoring the tendency to have pitching-related injuries, fine, but his crazy injury?

Finally, I upped my offer to Daniel Hudson for Axford. Both were shot down, of course. Smart managers are holding the saves they drafted. Even Heath frigging Bell, though I am at a loss to explain that one. Anyone have any suggestions for prying Axford or even Putz away?