And the twist version is really good. Vargas has 2 club-controlled years left, so he'll almost certainly be more affordable than most of the FA options. He's gonna make about 4 mil in arb next year - we can afford that.
The rotation will be interesting next year for sure. Does Furbush stay in it? His stuff is occasionally nasty and he has the stamina to be a starter, but his motion is very Bugs Bunny. He leaves the ball over the plate too much, but when he's on it doesn't matter. It's his off nights that lead to taters and poundings.
Will that be better in the pen? He's always gotten hit quite a bit for a guy with his level of strikeouts. If for some reason we did decide to bring Bedard back we could do worse than having Furbush as his 6th inning tag-team partner, but we'll need to find a role for Charlie and then keep him in it.
How about Beavan? He keeps pitching, keeps not striking anyone out... and keeps surviving. But how do you put a 3.7 K/9 arm in your rotation for 180 innings? Tony Vasquez can't start for you, but what about Erasmo Ramirez or Andy Carraway? What's going on with Paxton and Hultzen, and what timeframe can we expect on them?
The two pitchers we know are gonna be in the rotation in 2012 are Felix and Pineda. Assuming health, they're locked in.
The rest of the spots are up in the air. I'd take Vargas as a 3rd, Paxton as a 4th and then let Beavan, Furbush, Erasmo, Carraway et al fight it out for the 5th spot.
If Furbush loses, then a permanent pen job isn't the worst thing for him. We badly need a lefty reliever, but he has to be more consistent. More effective would be nice too.
Right now, just based on the arms on this team, it looks like Felix / Pineda / Paxton / Vargas / Beavan in the rotation, with Beavan just holding a place for a 2013 splashdown by Hultzen if he can't get his Ks up. Do you trust that rotation?
The pen would be Furbush, Ruffin, Lueke, Wilhelmsen, League and maybe another lefty (Moran?) if Kelley isn't making another go at staying healthy. Are you confident in that?
And if you answered no for either - or both - then how do you fix it? Knowing that Erasmo and Andy are hanging around aiming at the Beavan spot and Hultzen is a future ace who should make a fast ascent, what kind of contract would you want on a pitcher from outside the org? It'd have to be short, right? Which normally means injury concerns.
Don't forget, 10K-per-9, mid-90s lefty Robles is still in this as a dark horse if he ever gets healthy, even though I think he's gonna wind up bullpenned, and we have a TON of other bullpen arms climbing the ranks in the next year or two as well as several more good starting pitching options.
I take Vargas as my 1-to-2 year stopgap and see what happens, but that means we're relying a whole bunch on extraordinarily raw pitchers and rookie bullpenners to give up under 700 runs again, since our whole division does that rather easily, while hoping for significant offensive improvement.
Waiting on the kids is hard. Here's hoping Paxton and Hultzen are well worth the potential growing pains that might continue well into 2012. I would understand if we wanted to go with a 2-year Bedard deal and carry another long-reliever to make it easier for Paxton and Bedard. Both are only likely to go 5ish innings for a while, and neither will reach 180 IP either.
It just robs from our potential offensive improvement (which has only been ~50 runs better than last year's abomination) . We certainly have choices to make.
~G
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