Mariners’ Bullpen Going into Spring Training

Today the Seattle Mariners even added another member to their bullpen going into spring training named Joel Peralta. The Mariners signed him to a minor league contract. He pitched less than a half season for the Los Angeles Dodgers who released him before having to paying him $2.5 million. He spent last season on the disabled list with a sore shoulder from April thru June and again in August with a neck sprain. So you see he only pitched 29 innings for the season. He is now another reclamation project for the Mariner.

 I believe the Mariners will do well if at least one of these guys they picked during the off-season for the bullpen is successful. Actually the Mariners will need to count on several of them this coming season. Most of the pitchers the Mariners acquired during the off-season had off years in 2015. It will be quite interesting spring training because not only does the Mariners have pitchers who were not with them last year most of them we do not know their names or at least don’t remember them from a few years back. I would only those who are big baseball fans would remember them at all. Some of them are coming over from the national league as well.

The one real returning Mariner from the bullpen is Charlie Furbush who spent the second half of the season on the disabled list. At this point no one really knows if he will be able to start the season with the Mariners. According to Jerry Dipoto the Mariners will have two left handed specialists in the bullpen and they hope that Furbush will be one of them. The other candidates are David Rollins who only spent a partial year with the Mariners because he was suspended under the drug policy for eighty games and like much of the bullpen did not have very good outings either. He pitched only in 20 games for the Mariners with an era of 7.56. Other left handed candidates are Vidal Nuno and Mike Montgomery who both will be starting spring training competing for being the 5^th starter however one or both likely will be in the bullpen. Nuno is more likely the best candidate to pitch as a left handed specialist instead of Montgomery. If he is in the bullpen Montgomery likely will be used for long relief; Nuno on the other hand can be used several different ways. The Mariners do have another candidate in Brad Mills who is veteran and is invited as non-roster invitee. There is a good possibility that Dipoto will go out and get another left handed specialist before or during spring training.

As far as the rest of the bullpen the Mariners have several candidates. The Mariners are expected to have only seven pitchers in the bullpen including two left handers so leaves five right handed pitchers one being a closer and the other the eighth inning setup man. The closer is expect to be Steve Cishek who the Mariners signed as a free agent end the season with the St. Louis Cardinals and the setup man Joaquin Benoit the Mariners acquired in a trade with the San Diego Padres. So the Mariners have a lot of guys vying for three roster spots in the bullpen.

The Mariners have two guys who pitched some time with the team out of the bullpen during the 2015 season. The first is Mayckol Guaipe who went up and down with the Mariners several times during the season and Tony Zych who came up during the call ups in September. Actually Zych was impressive enough for the Mariners to have him on the forty man roster. He has the best chance on making the team out of spring training. The rest of the guys will be mentioned more going into spring training. Again it will be an interesting spring training to say the least. Go Mariners!