we won't be making any big moves
Well, there's a bunch of stuff that we all would like to see happen. A lot of it sounds like a "Christmas wish list" to me and isn't very realistic. I don't want to spend a lot of time thinking about a major roster shake-up, because I don't see it happening. I think we are invested in our young players and aren't about to give any of them up for stop-gap veterans at this time. We already screwed up with Quentin (and I agree with whoever posted the point that his college/minor league success was a good indicator that he would break out at some point -- I was excited when I heard we drafted him). We don't have a lot of money to spend on FAs.
Some of you mentioned getting a big-time closer: that will NOT happen. This franchise has never had one. The biggest move we made in that area was when we got Mantei, but back then, he wasn't viewed as an elite closer. We are even more cost-conscious now, and the big-time closers will be asking for more money than we can afford to spend to fill ALL our roster spots. That's too much to throw at one guy who will pitch only 70 innings a year. And don't forget, it wasn't just whoever was closing that was blowing late leads. It seemed like all of our relievers took turns coughing up leads. One week or two it was Qualls, then it was Pena, then it was Lyon, etc. All of them also had very good periods too, including Lyon We tend to remember the bad and forget the good.
Another thing, and I think our announcers brought this up and I completely agree with them: our lack of offense magnified our bullpen issues. Think about it: if your starter goes 6 innings, you are counting on your bullpen to pitch 3 innings. If your relivers have a collective ERA of 3.00, which is pretty good, then odds are they will give up one run on average in those 3 innings. It's impossible to pitch 3 scoreless over and over again. With our anemic offense, whenver we DID have the lead, it was usually 2-1 or 3-2, and they wouldn't score again down the stretch, so it wasn't hard to predict that the lead was going to get blown. If we presented the bullpen with a 4-2 or 5-2 lead, then when they give up a run every now and then, you wouldn't even notice it so much.
So, as far as moves go, I don't expect us to re-sign virtually any of our FAs. I'd love to see Cruz and Hudson return, but I doubt either will. We may make one or two token moves to "shore up" the pen, but I'm usually very wary of those. Have you all noticed that a lot of teams have a "good" pen one year and a mediocre or lousy one the next with virtually the same guys? I think 2 issues are at play here (1) sample size: with only a small number of innings to work with, you can have a really low ERA one year and a high one the next, and (2) the "best" pitchers are normally starters, or maybe closers, and the middle guys are often those that can't make it in either of the other two areas. That tells me you're probably not going to get stellar years out of those kinds of pitchers on a regular basis. Sure there are some exceptions, guys like Stanton and Nelson that the Yankees used in their pen to help them win several WS, but I don't think most middle relievers can be relied on to be consistent. My theory is if you get a really good year out of a middle reliever who wasn't that good in the past, SELL HIGH!!
Sorry for rambling, and I haven't mentioned any moves I would make, but that's because I really don't see us doing much.
