Bullpen Decisions

The Bullpen this year for the most part didn't sabotage many games and quite often was a strength. Still, middle relief started to raise some questions by years end.

Wood and Marmol, with the exception of some minor blips performed admirably. Wood is a free agent, and with the evaluation process of predicting a relief pitchers effectiveness from one year to the next pretty much a crap shoot, the Cubs would be well served to resign Wood.

Cotts being the only LHP in the pen will most assuredly be back and performed about as expected. Still Cotts is not would be described as a LH specialist and the Cubs could really use such a reliever. Fuentes of the Rockies and Marte of the Yankees are two excellent LHP candidates and either one would greatly help balance the bullpen.

Gaudin was performing well until his freak accident and should provide some quality middle relief innings.

Samardzija is raw but shows tremendous upside and should be able to land on spot on the 2009 roster.

Guzman, Hart and Wuertz should be battling for the final bullpen spot if a lefty isn't signed this off season. Howry's spotty performances in 2008 coupled with the fact he had a large contract and is now a free agent makes it hard to see how he's in the mix for next year.

The following is a list of the potential free agent relief pitchers...

Jeremy Affeldt CIN
Tony Armas Jr. PIT
Luis Ayala WAS
Joe Beimel LAD
Joe Borowski CLE
Juan Cruz ARZ
Brendan Donnelly BOS
Alan Embree * OAK
Scott Eyre CHC
Kyle Farnsworth DET
Casey Fossum DET
Brian Fuentes COL
Aaron Fultz CLE
Tom Gordon * PHI
LaTroy Hawkins HOU
Mark Hendrickson LAD
Trevor Hoffman SD
Bobby Howry CHC
Jason Isringhausen STL
Steve Kline SF
Brandon Lyon ARZ
Damaso Marte * NYY
Tom Martin COL
Julio Mateo PHI
Guillermo Mota MIL
Will Ohman CHC
Hideki Okajima * BOS
Darren Oliver LAA
John Parrish SEA
Chris Reitsma SEA
Dennys Reyes MIN
Juan Rincon CLE
Francisco Rodriguez LAA
Brian Shouse MIL
Rafael Soriano ATL
Jorge Sosa NYM
Mike Stanton * CIN
Salomon Torres * MIL
Derrick Turnbow MIL
Oscar Villarreal ATL
David Weathers CIN
Dan Wheeler TB
Dave Williams NYM
Matt Wise NYM
Jay Witasick TB
Kerry Wood CHC

Once again I'd like your thoughts and we'll discuss the potential starting position players next.