Tigers Likely To Keep Seven Relievers; Ausmus Says Six Spots Basically Locked Up Already
By Ashley Dunkak
@AshleyDunkak
LAKELAND, FLA. - Detroit Tigers manager Brad Ausmus could not say with certainty Friday whether he would keep seven or eight relievers on the major league roster. For now, he leans toward seven, though eight has not been completely ruled out.
"I guess it's possible," Ausmus said. "If I was gambling, I probably wouldn't lay odds on it, but it's not etched in stone."
If everything goes as Ausmus expects and seven is the number, at least half a dozen relievers could be competing for one spot. As the manager sees it now, the other six spots are already taken, barring something unexpected.
"You've got Joe [Nathan], you've got [Bruce] Rondon, Joba [Chamberlain], [Tom] Gorzelanny, [Joakim] Soria, Alby [Al Alburquerque] - that's six right there," Ausmus said. "I think those six, it'd be surprising if they weren't on the team. Something strange would have to happen, just based on their performances in the past.
"Now you're always concerned about injuries and stuff like that," Ausmus added. "I think that's where the depth comes into play, that if something unexpected comes up, we have a lot of arms we feel like could produce at the major league level. Then you could throw a bunch of guys in there. The guys that are in the competition for the last spot - Kyle Ryan, Blaine Hardy, Ian Krol, Josh Zeid, Alex Wilson, probably forgetting somebody. There's a lot of arms. Say you pick one of those, and they're on the team. Now the rest of them are available to us in Toledo. If something happens at any time, we feel like we've got a quality arm that can slide right in. Buck Farmer's another one."
Ausmus spoke earlier in the week about his skepticism of spring training statistics, and he reiterated that view Friday. Numbers from those games will not matter much to him, but how the pitchers look out on the field obviously counts.
"It won't necessarily be what their ERA is," Ausmus said. "A lot of it will have to do with what their stuff looks like, how the hitters react to their stuff, what we know about them from last season, et cetera. You can't completely remove [spring training games] from the equation, but I wouldn't say it's the overriding factor."
Last season Detroit's bullpen had an ERA of 4.29, ranked 27th in the major leagues. However, Rondon did not play at all last season following Tommy John surgery, and Soria - for whom the team traded in July - also missed time with an injury.
