While I agree that the team's short, weak bench is uninspiring, I imagine that those LHP would actually be facing Sierra and Izturis as presumed platoon mates for Lind and Goins. And they should flail a little less against LHP, though not be world beaters, of course.

I like the starting staff and very happy for McGowan.  He has worked so hard to get back.  If he regains his stuff and is healthy, it could be incredible.

I like McGowan much better than E. Santana or other free agent options.  My only concern is the health of McGowan (and Morrow).  That is the million $ question for the starting staff.  The good news is that if one falters, we do have good options in Buffalo and maybe Stroman will be ready.

The bullpen is incredible.  IT will be one of the best in the league.

The hitting will be one of the best in the leaque.  It too depends on health. 

I had a feeling this was going to be the picture after the off-season and am not surprised at all. I figured the organization would consider the FA pitching to be too expensive and would count on improved health, above all else, to improve on last year's record. It well might, but I see a .500 team, not much more.

I agree. And I was semi-expecting something to be done there. A Nick Franklin or someone. I may be the least enthused by Goins of anyone around here. A sub-600 OPS seems a very real possibility.

Because of the aforementioned off-days and proximity of the Bisons. With four off-days in April, it's hard to see the team having a tired bullpen even with seven relievers. There would likely need to be a flameout or two from the other starters or a long extra inning game for McGowan's pitch limit to be an issue.

In the event the team did find itself with a tired bullpen, normally it would be able to bring up a fresh arm or two very easily. The Bisons spend the whole month of April in the Northeast, so calling up someone from AAA on short notice shouldn't be a problem. A tired bullpen is something you can usually worry about when you actually have one.

Unfortunately the value of having the AAA affiliate close by has been reduced by the team's fear of losing one of its pitchers on waivers. The team simply doesn't have much roster flexibility at the moment due to all the guys who are out of options. Ideally Anthopoulos would have 1) actually done something about the team's surplus relievers during the offseason, and/or 2) thought twice about trading for relievers who were out of options. Anthopoulos basically painted himself into a corner.

Ultimately I think it's the option situation that has led to the decision to carry eight relievers, not McGowan's pitch limit. As I'm sure you're well aware, this isn't the first time a team has had a starting pitcher who couldn't go deep into ballgames. Whether it's a starter coming off the disabled list, a reliever coming out of the bullpen to make a start, or a rookie who might implode in his major league debut, most teams will face the real possibility of relying on the bullpen for 5+ innings at some point during the season. Yet those teams manage just fine despite carrying only seven relievers. The Blue Jays would as well.

I don't think the Iglesias and Goins situations are that similar, though. Iglesias plays the more highly valued position. He has a reputation as a plus-defender whereas I doubt that Goins has any reputation at all. And Iglesias is a couple of years younger. I think Goins could hit .400 in April without establishing any trade value.

It would be nice to have the flexibility, particularly with Goins in the lineup. I really don't want to see Goins at the plate late in the game with a runner or two aboard, regardless of whether there is a lefty or righty on the mound. As things stand now, the options are 1) let Goins hit for himself, 2) use Izturis as a pinch hitter, or 3) use Sierra as a pinch hitter and Izturis in the field, but wind up with only Thole/Navarro left on the bench and potentially force Lind to face a lefty specialist.

I'm not crazy about Tuiasosopo, but I would have picked him as the 25th guy instead of Jeffress. I simply don't see the need for an 8-man bullpen to start the season.

Thanks. I keep forgetting that he is a shortstop who moved off position.

The distraction over player #25 does obfuscate bigger picture issues. The team is heading into the season with the #30 ranked second baseman, a player whom FanGraphs is projecting to be exactly replacement level. Based on who you believe, a Nick Franklin might give you somewhere between 1 and 3 WAR. That could have been a huge upgrade. (Maybe AA did pursue Franklin. Maybe Seattle asked too much. We'll never know.)

An upgrade at 2B would have been far more impactful to the team than getting "right" the decision on who should be player #25.

But the problem is guys like Randy Johnson who prove that sometimes -- albeit extremely rarely -- those guys do find control. Johnson started life as a wild man and improbably morphed into a genuine control pitcher, without sacrificing his Ks.

I do believe that many organizations spend too much time and effort trying to determine if their wild men can make the most unlikely of transmogrifications. Having a "live arm" means you get many chances to fail.

What is particularly rich in this case is that the team's best reliever is the guy who throws the softest, but who excels because of his command. Why is he not seen as the organizational poster boy?

• Jeffress could have turned a corner and might be a lights out guy and you might as well do one last check vs ML competition to see
• Gibbons isn't much of one for pinch hitting/running/defensive replacements but loves to use his pen
• Janssen, Santos, Cecil, Delabar all need a certain degree of kid glove treatment due to past injuries thus fewer guys to abuse when needed (ie: extra inning game, two weak starts in a row, etc.)
• With a day off each week the regulars should be able to play everyday without issue in April, even Reyes and Cabrera who both have injury recovery and Lawrie who is a walking time bomb it seems sometimes
• Lack of options for pen guys makes it tougher to do a Buffalo/Toronto shuttle plus the Jays want to keep good relations with Buffalo and making them short in the pen is not a good way to keep things happy.
• Morrow, McGowan, and Hutchison all are recovering from injuries so you want to keep them on very short leashes
  

Each has a different degree of weight, but all are worth thinking about.  Yeah, it'd be better if the pen was full of Goose Gossage types who can do 120 innings without their arms falling off but that isn't the case. I personally would prefer a shorter pen (grew up in the 5 man bullpen days) but would probably cut Redmond instead depending on what the scouts and coaches say about each players potential and holes in their games.

Following on from Rich's point, the short bench becomes even more problematic when one of the starting position players is afflicted with a nagging injury that the club does not diagnose as serious enough to warrant a trip to the DL (an evaluation on which they've been mistaken before), but which keeps him out of the lineup for several days, which effectively turns the bench into one player and a backup catcher.

I haven't seen evidence that suggests that the front office tends to do that so far during AA's tenure.

•  He hit well in one season, in 88 games with 322 PA. It may be an entirely different picture this year now that he's on the radar and the regular catcher.
•  He's not even eligible for arbitration yet, so there's plenty of time to see if he's figured it out.
•  He has only exceeded last year's numbers 3 times in a 5 year minor league career: once in rookie ball, once in the PCL, and once in 6 games in AAA last year.

Trout was a pitcher in high school. Had the Angels stuck him on the mound every fifth day and let him play centre field the other four days, we might be talking about the next Babe Ruth.