Thursday, January 24th, 2008 by Adam Wagner
Pirates add more potential depth to bullpen
On Thursday, the Pirates signed 39 year-old RHP Hector Carrasco and 30 year-old LHP Casey Fossum to minor league contracts. These signings are obviously meant to just add some potentially experienced depth on the cheap to the bullpen and to have some more competition for those seven open spots in Bradenton, but they actually make a significant amount of sense, particularly in light of the ridicu
Unlike Wednesday’s signing of Jaret Wright, these make a little bit more sense. It is much easier to catch lightning in a bottle with a reliever than with a starter (note the Pirates’ success with Jose Mesa) and, unlike Wright, Carrasco at least has some history of success despite falling off a bit last season. If he could return to his 2005 or 2006 status, Carrasco would easily be able to play a role for the Pirates in 2008. If not, they tried.
Fossum is a little bit more of a head-scratcher, having really pitched only one good season (2002). More likely than not, he was signed just because he is a left-hander with major league experience, so even if he does not make the club opening day or does not prove particularly effective, he could come in handy as a long reliever or a spot-starter at some point in the middle of the year.
Huntington is filling out his spring training roster at this point, picking up pitchers on the cheap instead of participating in any sort of bidding wars for anybody. As San Diego and Milwaukee have shown, money does not have to be spent to build a bullpen (even though they usually signed young, hard-throwing, overlooked pitchers or very accurate pitchers, not aging relievers). Maybe Huntington’s going about this the right way.
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