Forst wants to focus on the bullpen

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski on November 11, 2015 at 9:00 AM

So he says at the general manager meetings. This is sort of a sensible plan in a world in which your best reliever, Sean Doolittle, may have already blown through all the bullets he's going to fire (and maybe not! Certainly hopefully not, but you have to plan for the possibility) and your best reliever after that is ... uh, Drew Pomeranz? I guess Jesse Chavez if you don't need him in the rotation.

On the other hand, the team is also exceedingly weak either in left field or at first base, wherever Mark Canha isn't standing (and it's not like Canha is Paul Goldschmidt; and don't talk to me about Jake Smolinski), and isn't super hot at second base (even counting Brett Lawrie as the starter there, with Danny Valencia at third base, and who knows if that's even a full-season solution in any event). And those are the obvious-upgrade spots. Sonny Gray is the only All-Star talent on the roster, as the next tier (Stephen Vogt, Josh Reddick, Billy Burns, Marcus Semien) falls more in the range of above average (though Semien might have some untapped upside and Burns could add some value by learning the league and bumping his on-base rate and stealing more and better). So the question becomes less "where is the weakness on the roster?" and more "do you want to focus time, energy, and money on the bullpen on a team that won't have an 88-win projection at the start of next season?"