I like the “assignment”. Unfortunately I’m eating up $3.5 million real quick on Springer. Leaving me with $1.5 mil that basically needs to go to a lefty specialist (or two). Of course Marte and Ohman are probably at the top of everybody’s list, but no way they sign for $1.5 mil. I’d make an offer to Rhodes for the full amount on a one year deal – if I get both him and Springer (along with Perez, Motte, McClellan, Kinney, Franklin, Manning and/or TJ) I think that makes for a pretty good pen. Worrell is still available in case somebody flames out…what about Thompson?

If I can’t get Rhodes to bite…I’ll offer the same deal to Beimel then Shouse…hopefully it’s enough to land one of the three.

I haven’t looked at the stats, or more importantly, the splits, but I wouldnt mind seeing this hard throwing lefty present come spring training.

What’s with our snatching up the Nats’ castoffs? Lopez and now Manning. The Lopez experiment went well, although I’m hopeful his OF stints are far less in number next season (after TLR goads Mo into re-signing his dull utility knife). Hopefully, in a TLR-micromanaged ‘pen, he’ll find success with controlled exposure.

Where they plug McClellan in has a great impact on this question. Will they insert him into the rotation if a FA starter can’t be had at the right price? Lets assume that another starter is acquired in some way, shape, or form. That makes the list of relievers already on the roster like this:

RHP: Perez, McClellan, Motte, Kinney, Thompson, Jimenez

As an aside, the Official Site’s Depth Chart has Perez listed as the closer. Hmmm. Tea leaves? Could “Young Pitcher” be next year’s designated closer?

LOOGYs: Manning

This leaves us $5M for two LOOGYs and a righty to come in and “compete” for a ‘pen spot. The top two lefties, in my opinion, are Affeldt and Ohman. (I’m assuming the Yankees will pick up Marte’s option.) I would sign one of those two with an aggressive push. Then, I’d have a Spring Tryout between Tyler Johnson, Manning, and another scrap off the heap. I’d also re-sign Izzy to a minor league deal and allow him to compete in Spring Training for a roster spot with an eye toward him filling the Springer role. (I know this virtually assures him making the club and I’m okay with that.)

As an aside, shouldn’t MLBTR list relievers by throwing arm? It’d make this exercise a lot easier.

We can carry 7 bullpen pitchers, right? I know Crazy Tony rears his ugly head sometimes and we wind up with 13, but for the sake of argument let’s go with 12.

I like to build a ’pen from the back end going forward.

1. Perez HAS to be pencilled in as closer.
2. Setup guys will need to be Motte and Franklin.
3. Then, we need to look at what long relievers we have. Since we signed Loshe, and assuming Carp is healthy, we will have Thompson and KMac in at that role. I have a feeling we will need 2 long relievers, since one will probably pitch every 5th day along with the Pinball machine.
4. Soooo, that leaves us with 2 spots.

Tony will INSIST on having 2 lefties, even if they are crappy ones, on the roster. That makes me feel bad for Josh Kinney, although he and Thompson can compete for mop-up duty, with one being with the big club and the other being in AAA waiting for an injury.

I would love to give TJ every shot at making the big club. I personally would only go after 1 free agent, and if TJ can’t hack it, we can trade for a lefty or just live with what we have in-house. Mitch Boggs should be able to get some lefties out with his curveball.

Let’s go get Shouse. He’s a dynamite LOOGY!!!

but under the circumstances of this exercise I would just spend the money on LHPs.

Based on the stats below, I would shoot for a top tier Loogy such as Joe Beimel, Scott Eyre, Dennys Reyes or Arthur Rhodes and spend what’s left on a guy like Jeremy Affeldt, Will Ohman or Brian Shouse, budget permitting.

Player followed by ERA+ 2008/Career, OPS vs LHB 2008/Career

Jeremy Affeldt - 135/105, .745/.745
Joe Beimel - 219/103, .641/ .722
Alan Embree - 82/95, .719/.669
Scott Eyre - 237/103, .664/.723

Casey Fossum - 78/83, .674/.722
Mark Hendrickson - 76/89, .718/.685
Damaso Marte - 106/137, .679/.583
Trever Miller - 105/101, .612/.709

Will Ohman - 112/106, .571/.603
Darren Oliver - 152/98, .653/.804
Horacio Ramirez - 105/94, .836/.719
Dennys Reyes - 179/104, .537/.670

Arthur Rhodes - 205/105, .453/.614
Glendon Rusch - 87/88, .637/.777
Brian Shouse - 155/128, .486/.589
Ron Villone - 91/96, .629/.701

then we’d have the most injured pitching staff in history!

He also managed to give up eight home runs in his forty big league innings, one of which did not endear him to a Washington Post headline writer.

note to Washington Post guy: Yeah, Manning, thats whats wrong with that team :-P

I think this is a fun and interesting discussion on the bullpen. If you feel this detracts from the discussion, DanUp, feel free to delete it. I cross-posted it on the Hot Stove Catch-All.

ESPN is reporting that the Pads are lining up suitors (nothing new there), with the Braves as “hot” after Peavy and the Dodgers as another likely suitor. They also mention the Cards, but in a speculative catch-all “other clubs likely interested” paragraph. The juicy morsel, to me, was this:

The Padres are seeking at least two young pitchers in return, along with someone who can become the team’s everyday center fielder sometime in the immediate to near future.

I believe that both Affeldt and Cruz are type-A and there’s no way I’m giving up the number 18-20 pick in the draft for a middle reliever. They’re far too fungible.

grab shouse and rhodes. it’s two old lefties for the pen, which would probably give TJ an opportunity as well. if you can’t grab both of the old geezers, see if villone will stick around another year.

not on the list, but maybe kevin correia can be had on a minor league deal, kinda always thought he had some upside.

juan cruz does have the stuff to be at the back of a bull pen, can we add him within budget? if not, springer seems to be the next best rhp option. in my mind most of these guys are fungible to some extent.

MiLB.com is still billing my monthly $6.95 for the multimedia section, although it is now availible for free. So, any of you out there that paid for this with a credit card, etc. Please check you statements to make sure this isn’t happening to you.

You’re giving me five million dollars to fix this bullpen? Man, talk about a sweet assignment.

This is what you do:

1.Sign Jeremy Affeldt.

2.Let Tyler Johnson battle it out with Charlie Manning and some transients for the other lefty relief spot.

3.Pay some mafia guys to ‘convince’ Tony that he needs to just use the young guys we’ve already got in the bullpen.

4.Spend the rest on a couple of those big fans and a truckload of good Scotch.

5.Use the Scotch for both drinking and performance incentives for the relievers.

I thought you guys would enjoy this article. It is about the other man on the podium Peter Norman

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7674157.stm

1$ million of that money and find more NRIs like Charlie Manning and return the remaining chunk to Mo.

I think forcing Greene into the mix diminishes Peavy’s value. Does anyone out there think Greene would be much of an improvement? We already have a goodly number of 100K batters on the roster.