Baltimore Orioles: Solid Bullpen From Top to Bottom
By Nate Wardle
Baltimore Orioles and Dan Duquette are committed to a deep bullpen, but creating a shut-down back-end of the bullpen is all the rage right now in the MLB.
The Baltimore Orioles signing of Logan Ondrusek is not going to get World Series tickets printed. In fact, it probably won’t sell any season tickets.
But what it does do is continues to give the Orioles major-league experienced depth in the bullpen.
The bullpen is currently made up of Zach Britton, Darren O’Day, Brad Brach, Mychal Givens and Donnie Hart. Let’s consider those five as safe to be on the Opening Day roster in 201.
That leaves probably three more spots, as the Baltimore Orioles will probably start the season with a 13-man bullpen due to off days, short starts, etc.
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However, the Orioles’ staff has hinted that they don’t feel that Yovani Gallardo or Wade Miley are good fits in the bullpen because of how long it takes them to get ready.
So, to make things easy, let’s go with a five-man rotation of the top, with Ubaldo the odd man out. This prevents trying to predict trades, injuries, etc.
But, let’s keep the eight-man bullpen, predicting only three bench players.
Ubaldo is the long man, with the five listed above. That leaves two spots, one for another swingman/long reliever and one for another pitcher.
Options on the 40-man roster are Jayson Aquino, Parker Bridwell, Oliver Drake, Jason Garcia, Joe Gunkel, Chris Lee, Jesus Liranzo, T.J. McFarland, Ondrusek, Logan Verrett, Tyler Wilson and Mike Wright.
The first thing to look at is who is out of options. Oliver Drake is out of options, as is T.J. McFarland. Otherwise, everyone else on this list has options remaining.
It would make it easy for McFarland to be the other long man, as a lefty in a right-handed heavy rotation. And Drake pitched well enough in 2016 that he could prove himself to be a capable other option in a deep bullpen.
Other teams, looking in the AL East, have not bought into the deep bullpen. Sure, the Yankees had Betances, Miller, and Chapman in 2016, and will have Betances and Chapman in 2017. But until they reacquired Adam Warren, most of their guys in the bullpen were people who had very little major league experience, or were put in the bullpen because they were not effective as a starter (Luis Severino).
The same goes for the Blue Jays, which was part of the reason their bullpen was so bad to start the year. Aaron Loup and Brett Cecil struggled a little, and until they started to rely on Joe Biagini and acquired Jason Grilli and Joaquin Benoit, the bullpen was bad.
Tampa Bay for years has just thrown players in the bullpen and hope something sticks, and it has not worked.
Only the Red Sox have a bullpen that is strong throughout but going into 2017 that may not be the case with Koji Uehara leaving for Chicago, and the health of Carson Smith up in the air.
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So while these moves may not appease the fan base, don’t discount them. A strong bullpen from top to bottom is an essential part of the Baltimore Orioles’ success year in and year out.