The Potentially Unrecognizable Bullpen

by ~ November 12th, 2009 at 6:17 pm

You may look at the Seattle Mariners roster and think that, for the most part, they’ve got their 2010 bullpen in place.  David Aardsma is coming off his best season in which he was one of the top closers in baseball, Mark Lowe continued to improve and Sean White resurfaced as a solid setup guy.  If you plan on those three coming back and progress from Shawn Kelley, there aren’t many spots up for grabs.

But there will be, because chances are one or more of the trio will become trade bait.

GM Jack Zduriencik realizes that bullpens can be effective with cheap no-names and that there are still plenty of teams out there that overvalue relievers or are fooled by deceptive ERA. There is a great chance that Aardsma, Lowe or even White will be in the back end of someone else’s bullpen next spring.

Think about how many relievers Zduriencik brought in last year.  Jesus Delgado, Luis Pena, Eric Hull, David Aardsma, Chad Cordero, Tyler Walker, Aaron Heilman and Tyler Johnson were all brought in from the outside, and those are just the guys I could think of off the top of my head, not to mention all the guys that were already in the organization but weren’t viewed as big league bullpen candidates by most fans.  Sure, of those guys brought in only Aardsma made an impact on the big league club, but that’s no knock on the process.  You can’t fault Zduriencik for having a solid crew to choose from leftover from the Bill Bavasi era.

A fresh new crop of Shawn Kelleys figure to join the fun in Phillippe Aumont, Joshua Fields, Ricky Orta, Anthony Varvaro and probably several others who are not on our collective radars or are currently viewed as starters.  Add to those four waiver claims, minor league free agents, reclamation projects and middling organizational arms and you’ve got one helluva bullpen competition without even talking about the 2009 crew.

If the right deals are out there Zduriencik won’t hesitate to pull the trigger, I can promise you that.  A few teams that may be looking for relief help this winter: New York Mets, Tampa Bay Rays, Philadelphia Phillies, Chicago Cubs, New York Yankees, Cleveland Indians, Detroit Tigers.

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  • Slurve

    My wishes for a speedy recovery for Wetteland he really brought the bullpen together and sounded like a fun guy to be around.

    • http://proballnw.com Jon

      All the depression and contemplating suicide reports were bunk. Giant misunderstanding and bad reporting.

  • harrison

    I completely agree, there are A LOT of teams looking to “sure up” their bull pen.

    I don’t honestly think much will happen until December, but something will. All the rumors surrounding Seattle coming out of the GM meetings, makes me believe JZ is working hard to put something together….

  • eastcoastmariner

    Great post Jon! Like you said, with guys like Fields, Aumont, Vavaro, and Orta not far off from the big leagues, there’s a very good chance one or more of Aardsma/Lowe/White find themselves in another uniform next season.

  • rudolf11

    Unless we’re offered more than Mark Lowe is worth, or he’s a quintessential part of a package, I think we should hold onto him for at least another year. It seems like he’s finally producing the legitimate fruit we expected, but he’s not quite there. Wouldn’t it behoove us to hold onto him for at least another year, (or till the AS break), and allow him to fully develop so we can extract maximum value in a trade?

    Aardsma is there. Ship him off. Let Mark Lowe pull an Aardsma in 2010 and then ship him off. Or keep him.

    Sean White isn’t that good. He’s like Sean Green. If someone wants him in a package, meh, have him.

    • http://proballnw.com Jon

      Yeah, it would be ideal to move Aardsma and hope Lowe can increase his value in the closer’s role, but based on what I heard around the trade deadline their value was very similar, and some teams would have paid more for Lowe than Aardsma. Aardsma has the better numbers, and some teams overpay for a guy that has “done it” in the bigs, but for the most part teams are smart enough to realize that Lowe’s pure stuff and potential is much better than Aardsma’s.