Tiger Geist

No other way to explain it.. hats off to Kansas City and Cleveland in how they are fixing their bullpen.

As I just mentioned, KC signed Kyle Farnsworth.  I have no idea what role he will play (setup man?), but i like most hitters’ chances against him.

While I’m concerned about Detroit’s lack of a closer, I don’t think signing K-Rod or Kerry Wood would be a smart decision.  Kerry Wood is switching leagues (I’m always skeptical about the NL to AL move), and has a bad injury history.  How bad?  Tony Paul has a nice writeup about it in today’s Detroit News.  Until last year, Wood had SIX STRAIGHT seasons with right shoulder issues.  In those seasons, he missed an average of 59 games / year.  Thats someone you want to invest $10 mil / year on?  Especially for a small(er) market team like Cleveland?

At ~$13 mil / year, K-Rod seems like a bargain.  Except the Angels sure seemed to allow him to throw every possible inning over the last few years.  Its like they knew they weren’t going to re-sign him anyway, so they had no concerns about blowing out his arm.  I’ll be amazed if he doesn’t end up on the DL at least once / year during his Mets stint.

Honestly, maybe Double D shouldn’t get so much slack for drafting college relievers last year.  The market seems to over-value closers so much that its cost prohibitive to sign (or trade for) an established closer — even ones with gigantic red flags in terms of their injury history (JJ Putz, Wood).  Getting what might be an average starting pitcher (Edwin Jackson) for a fourth outfielder (Matt Joyce) seems like a steal compared to what Detroit would have to give up to get Putz alone.