Thursday, November 17, 2005

Retooling the 'pen

Over the past few days Jim Hendry has started rebuilding the Chicago Cubs. He started with one of the teams weakest parts in 2005--the bullpen. Yesterday, Jon Leicester was sent to the Texas Rangers for a PTBNL. Today the Cubs signed left handed relief pitcher Scott Eyre.

The 33 year old reliever is projected to team with Will Ohman as the Cubs left-handed setup men for closer Ryan Dempster. Eyre is coming off the best season of his career. He had a 2.63 ERA pitching in 86 games (73 of those outings were scoreless appearances).

Eyre fits the "Dusty-Proof" plan that I advocate. As we all know Dusty loves the lefty/lefty matchup, even with Mike Remlinger who had splits that showed he shouldn't have been pitching. Eyre pitches well against left handed hitters. In 2005 left handed hitters only hit .182 against Eyre.

On paper this looks like a good addition to the Cubs 'pen. Now we wait to see who will be the right handed compliments to Eyre and Ohman in middle relief.

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