|
20 year old Will Cunnane came into his 1st full season with a ton of expectations after 18 good starts as a 19 year old, but it did not happen. He went 8-15 with a 4.41 ERA but a 2.6 WAR. However, he had an ERA over 5 most of the year until a very good September brought 5 straight quality starts.
We traded for Dave Otto before the season as he had 5 seasons of an ERA under 4 and we thought we would be adding at least a #2. But that didn't happen, either. He went 12-12 with a 4.66 ERA and a WAR of 2. He has 3 years left at $1.5 a year, so he's definitely written in stone in our rotation.
Andy Araujo got off to a great start for us, We signed him to a 3 year extension at $700,000 a year in August when he was 8-6 with a 3.86 ERA. But the rest of the way, he went just 1-5 with an ERA over 5, but he is also written into the rotation next year
We traded for 24 year old Bobby Jones before the season hoping he could turn a good season as a swingman into the 4th starter spot. Well....that didn't happen. He went 5-13 with a 5.05 ERA. No promises for a rotation spot next year
We took 20 year old Jon Barnes in the rule 5 draft from the Cubs and he has to be the most exciting prospect we have now. He started the season in the bullpen as the last arm in the pen and ended the season, frankly, as the 2nd best starter on the team. His first 38 appearances were out of the pen where he was 2-2 with a 3.70 ERA. We gave him 5 starts to end the season and he went 6 innings every time lowering his ERA to 3.60. He ended up 3-4 with a save and a 3.60 ERA and over a 2-1 K-BB ratio. Very excited
Our bullpen went from a strength to a weakness after trading our original closer, Bryan Farmer and then the best reliever we had, Arthur Martinez. We never found a 3rd closer after the break, so we will need to add someone in the offseason as we re-build the bullpen. We may add a starter and if so, we would slide Jones into the pen as a longan
|