This was going to be part of the earlier entry, but I decided that it deserved stand-alone attention. Have you seen how good the Padres bullpen this year?
Their closer, Heath Bell has a 1.38 ERA - and he may be having the worst season among the primary relievers. Luke Gregerson is simply unhittable - the league is batting .114 off him. Mike Adams and last night's goat Edward Mujica are both striking out more than a batter an inning while also allowing less than one baserunner per frame. Joe Thatcher, Ryan Webb and Tim Stauffer (currently on a rehab assignment after a bout with appendicitis) have combined for over 50 innings of work with an ERA of 0.85 and a WHIP of 0.911. That's from the back of the bullpen, folks.
My favorite part about the Padres' bullpen? Their salaries:
Bell: $4 mill
Adams: $ 1 mill
Mujica: $420K
Gregerson: $416K
Stauffer: $415K
Thatcher: $413K
Webb: $400K
The entire bullpen makes a little more than $7 million this year - which is over $5 million LESS than Francisco Rodriguez alone!
3 comments:
Give 'em a call in two years and see if any of those guys are all still throwing for the Padres at such a bargain price.
Surely you realize that you're being a hater right now. The Padres followed the ideal blueprint for building a bullpen - pay a closer, and ride six hot hands as far as you can.
Two years from now, Bell will be a free agent and probably pitching elsewhere. The rest will still be arbitration-eligible, so the Padres can pick and choose who to keep, trade or release. Not one multi-year contract among the lot of them.
Gregerson is a legitimate gem and probably Bell's successor. Adams is an older guy who learned a new pitch and used it to become a dominant reliever. I don't know much about the other guys and I don't need to. They are pitching well right now and may or may not develop into stars. If they don't, the Pads will have paid slightly over the league minimum to wring all the success they could out of them.
you alive, son?
Mack
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