With the Octavio Dotel deal nearing completion, DK asks in his links this morning:
From there, throw in Javier Lopez and D.J. Carrasco, both 32, and the bullpen surely will end up with an average age over 30.
Does that mean the team is abandoning rebuilding at the major league level?
Or is it a sign of how Neal Huntington plans to build a bullpen, not just now but for the foreseeable future?
Huntington’s bullpen strategy this off-season upset a lot of people at first when Jesse Chavez and Matt Capps were traded away, but with Lopez signed, Carrasco in the mix, Dotel likely to join, a third mystery reliever on the horizon, and some interesting NRIs being added to Meek, Hanrahan, and McCutchen/Hart, things are suddenly shaping up nicely.
One important thing to remember is that if any of these guys perform well and the Pirates really want to keep them, they can offer them arbitration when the season ends. The problem with keeping Matt Capps wasn’t necessarily paying a reliever $3.5 million, but paying one that might not be any good. With the market the way it is, many relievers accept arbitration to avoid the situation that Carrasco fell into this year (he pitched 93 good innings for the White Sox and ends up in Pittsburgh on a minor league deal). It’d be a bit more expensive than the route the Pirates are taking this off-season, but just because these guys will all be on one-year deals doesn’t mean the Pirates are only going to be able to keep them for one year.
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