I can see why my BB reference was confusing (no, I was not suggesting he was on par with saarland). What I meant to say was that, while Mark's statement suggested that closers should have been favoured, the other recognized closer (with ability) in the field did not fare very well either (and in fact may have had first run on saarland and yet finished behind him). Not a major point, as clearly you're not going to get very far just by bettering blue burner.

talking about blue burner, I was surprised to see harlans quoted at less than 2/1. I believe Fusaichi started longer than that and he was a stronger favourite in my view. FP had beaten east and west coast foes - Harlans has proved he can beat the same group over and over but has not really been tested against other form lines.