The Rising Cost Of Relief

Yeah, can afford to overspend on at least one arm. And a reliever can come and go, again depending on the price and the state of your team.

Yes, the Twins DO have prospects up the wazoo, so to speak, probably better than any arm in their current bullpen. They have to groom a future closer, and in the salary structures, probably another shortly after that. Trevor May could find a superstar role as a reliever if he so chooses.

Glen Perkins, for all his ups and few downs, is not the end game in gold. He best future role IS probably as a setup man as he ages...although (salary offerings) will keep him in the closer role, or signing with another team for one of those 3-year $30 million contracts in the future...as a setup guy...NOT with the Twins, sadly, though.

So the Twins should overspend on a longterm aging lefty (who better be close to lights out). Can they play the right-handed field, or do they need another guy and forget about Tonkin/Pressly/Graham and whomever for now and forever.

Press and Graham can still go back to the minors, so that is a blessing. But I'm not sure the answer to a contending team IS Darnell, O'Rourke or even Rogers/Dean in the bullpen. Maybe one of those guys can fill a space, but not two.

Trade Plouffe for Will Smith and then trade whatever minor leaguers it takes to get Ken Giles. That would give you a REAL bullpen, with RHP (Giles, Jepsen, and May) and LHP (Perkins and Smith). Transactions like this, would actually help the payroll.  Probably, very impossible trades to make. But, one can dream. Smith, with 2 years of arb. Giles has 5 years of team control. One of the 2 would really help the team.

I heard earlier rumblings here about pursuing Tony Sipp-  I like that idea a lot.  We've got good help coming up from the farm, too, it's just a question of when some of 'em will be ripe enough to be picked.  Jeepers, those boys down in AZ looked durn good this fall, didn't they?

I swear, though, we simply can't get to spring again with that list of pedestrians and suspects like we had in the pen last year.  That was a disgrace, and the most glaring weakness in the team all year.

Bastardo's stuff is dirty so we should sign that dirty Bastardo.

Isn't it Ryan's job to be out in front of trends, rather than be surprised and frustrated?

Actions speak louder than words. If improving the pen is truly a priority, do something about it.

Offering Fien and hoping on minor leaguers seems to me the opposite of "priority."

Maybe I'm being fooled (probably am), but I felt better after listening to what Ryan said during his interview with MLB.com yesterday. Essentially, he said the team has quantity but needs to upgrade the quality, and he was quite clearly referring to pitching. This leads me to think they're focused on perhaps a single target, and this would be an understandable departure from past years when there were lots of holes to fill. For me, I will be disappointed if Ryan fails to find one upgrade that meets or exceeds the Jepsen Standard. Sipp and Bastardo types. My hunch is the internal BP options will be a pleasant surprise to us in 2016, but they need that one high-leverage lefty.

Our bullpen is not that bad. It was almost fixed Las t season on the fly. Cotts and Rodney would do the trick cause they won't block anyone comming up. We still have Jepsen, Perkins, Fien, and likely May. that's a good enough bullpen IMO.

Why will Nolasco will be good in the bullpen?  It's a bad idea to assume he'd be good in the role.  More importantly, I don't think he'd go for it and I don't think the Twins would push into until late 2016 or 2017.

Sign Sipp, Bastardo or Clippard if he falls to the 3/$24M range.

Hey Nick, heads up that mlbtr is now reporting Lowe's contract was only worth $11 million, not the previously-reported $13 million.

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2015/12/tigers-sign-mark-lowe.html

The handbook predicted 2 for 10, so this new info improves your amazing predictive powers!! 

Craig Stemmons looks like the buy low candidate opportunity we should jump on.