In a baseball season defined by changes at almost every level of the organization, perhaps no aspect of the Washington Nationals’ on-field product has changed more than a bullpen that has been made over multiple times over the past six months.
Remember when Joel Hanrahan was the closer, Joe Beimel the setup man and Mike Hinckley and Steven Shell key up-and-comers? How about when Kip Wells and Julian Tavarez were considered stabilizing, veteran influences? Or when Logan Kensing was used to try to get out of a potential game-changing jam?
Yes, Washington’s bullpen has boasted a variety of incarnations this season, many of them resulting in disaster and some of them offering glimmers of hope. If nothing else, general manager Mike Rizzo has managed to reconfigure a relief corps that was horrific during the season’s first half (8-30 with a 5.71 ERA) into a respectable unit (10-6, 4.34 ERA) since then.
But is the makeover complete? Are the Nationals prepared to go in 2010 with this latest incarnation of their bullpen, or is another overhaul required this winter?
Rizzo doesn’t sound content to stick with the status quo.
“I still think it’s a major point of emphasis for us in the offseason,” he said. “We’ve gotten better, and we’ve kind of revamped the bullpen. … I think we’ve got many more capable, keepable parts in the bullpen than we did in the beginning of the season. But certainly not satisfied with it, no.”
Rizzo faces any number of decisions as he seeks to build his 2010 bullpen, none more difficult than whether to keep entrusting the closer’s job to Mike MacDougal or look elsewhere for a more proven ninth-inning stopper.
MacDougal certainly has made a case to return in the role he inherited in June. He has converted 14 of 15 save opportunities while posting a 2.45 ERA and holding opponents to a .210 batting average. But is that a big enough sample size to guarantee future success, or is MacDougal destined to revert to the haphazard form that got him released by the Chicago White Sox in April?
“I think that he’s improved leaps and bounds from the time we got him to today,” Rizzo said. “And we’ve seen in the past what he can do as a major league closer. He’s shown us flashes here in a shorter view that he’s capable of handling the back-of-the-game job.”
If the Nationals are reluctant to stick with MacDougal, they would be forced to dip into a free agent pool that is both thin and pricey (Billy Wagner, Mike Gonzalez and Kevin Gregg are among the bigger names who could be available).
Major league GMs generally prefer not to sign top-tier, free agent closers, at least not until their club is on the verge of playoff contention, and Rizzo ascribes to that belief. The Nationals have plenty of needs this offseason (a veteran starter, a second baseman) and only a finite amount of money to address those needs, so it’s unlikely a free agent closer is high on their winter shopping list.
For what it’s worth, other members of Washington’s bullpen believe MacDougal has brought stability to a highly unstable situation and has earned the right to return next season.
“The first role that has to be taken care of is the closer,” left-hander Sean Burnett said. “You want to get to the ninth inning, and you want to know there’s one guy you can rely on to take the ball and get the job done. And Mac’s done an incredible job.”
So the Nationals may be more inclined to try to bolster their stable of setup men and middle relievers this winter. Burnett (2.82 ERA in 27 games since his acquisition from the Pittsburgh Pirates) and right-hander Tyler Clippard (2.63 ERA in 28 games since his promotion from Class AAA Syracuse) are probably the only other members of Washington’s bullpen who are assured jobs next year. There’s no certainty about inconsistent relievers like Jason Bergmann and Saul Rivera.
Also waiting in the wings is right-hander Drew Storen, the 10th overall pick in June’s draft who blazed through three levels of the Nationals’ farm system and is viewed as a potential closer down the road.
Those in-house candidates may be attractive and offer enough promise to make Washington’s 2010 relief corps a more stable unit than the disastrous 2009 unit. But team officials don’t believe they alone are enough to solve a problem that was as damaging to the Nationals’ fortunes this season as anything else.
“I think there’s some parts down there that we feel comfortable with for the future,” interim manager Jim Riggleman said. “But you’re doing an injustice to the ballclub, to the whole organization, to the city, if you don’t explore every opportunity to get better down there.”
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