Baltimore Reliever Aggregation Station

Now that the Winter Meetings are over, the General Managers have retreated each to their own cities to pursue whatever ill-conceived plans they weren't able to get done in Indianapolis. For the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, this appears to be trolling fans of the New York Yankees, as always; for the St. Louis Cardinals, it's salivating over talented pitching castoffs and driving drunk, as always; and for the Seattle Mariners, Philadelphia Phillies, and Toronto Blue Jays, it's building the Ozymandias of offseason trades, an orgiastic majesty of prospects and extensions. The bandit prince of Oakland Billy Beane is also lurking around somewhere out there in the shadows, still disgruntled he signed Eric Chavez to a long-term deal. And as always, the Baltimore Orioles are considering precisely which relief pitcher of dubious quality they should throw six or seven million dollars at each of the next couple years.

The market is wide open right now, big as the sea and about as full of flame-outs from the NL Central (though one hopes they end up better than Jessie Hollins). But right now the relievers available should be a list of only three as far as the Orioles are concerned:

Kiko Calero (10.35 K/9, 4.50 BB/9, 2.30 K/BB, 1.10 WHIP, .259 BAbip, 60.0 IP, 3.92 xFIP)
Matt Capps (7.62 K/99, 2.82 BB/9, 2.71 K/BB, 1.66 WHIP, .370 BAbip (!!), 54.1 IP, 4.37 xFIP)
Tony Pena (7.07 K/9, 2.49 BB/9, 2.67 K/BB, 1.44 WHIP,  .304 BAbip, 70.0 IP, 3.87 xFIP)

Calero's an ex-Florida Marlin, Capps is the non-tendered closer of the 2009 Pittsburgh Pirates, and Tony Pena is the only relief pitcher leaving the White Sox this season that Baltimore should consider -- Carrasco's unimpressive and Dotel, a Type A, is going to cost picks.

It's hard to say anything with certainty about where the bullpen is before spring training and its inevitable procession of arm injuries and the mirage of superstardom cast by minor league hitting and small sample size, but right now Koji Uehara has been announced as a planned reliever and the closer's job will likely be his to lose. This is good, because Uehara's OPS against in the first three innings in 2009 was .641, and opponents seeing him for the first time in a game had an OPS'd .561. Sure, he'd probably be more useful in high leverage situations, but baby steps.

Anyway, no one should go out and tell the world Uehara's the closer, because that might scare away Matt Capps. On first blush, Capps's season up there is not exactly what you want out of a guy pitching in important relief situations, but then you notice that frankly absurd BAbip against and wonder if he was fucking around with the wives and/or dogs of the entire Pirates infield. He's 26 years old, his three previous seasons in the majors saw him post an xFIP of around 4.10, and once you get non-tendered, you somewhat lose the ability to dictate how the team that signs you gets to use you. After all, if you'd been a good closer, then why were you non-tendered? Et tu, "clutch" pitching. Capps fits pretty well as a "situational" guy, in the sense that you save him for a "situation" where you need to get some batters out without giving up runs. Failing that, make him the seventh inning man, I suppose. Reliever roles that don't rely on statistical splits are for the most part petty horseshit.

Kiko Calero's a guy Orioles fans have probably never heard of, but those are some decent numbers and the hope is that no one else has heard of him, either. That's generally the blessing and the curse when dealing from guys who have just had contract years with the Florida Marlins. He's going to regress a bit because he's turning 36 and had a pretty high BAbip against, but coming to the AL East from the NL East shouldn't be too big of a shock, all things considered. Use him as Jeremy Guthrie's designated clean-up guy or something. On his days off, try him at third.

Speaking of pitchers in a utility role, the Tony Pena above is sadly not that Tony Pena, because that would have been awesome. However! What would be more awesome would be having a good relief pitcher. If Pena can put up numbers like that with the Orioles, he'd be well worth four million a year with incentives.

My expectation is that Capps signs somewhere else with the lure of Established Closing Fortitude, Calero gets picked up by the New York Mets, and Tony Pena returns to the NL West with the Dodgers or something, but if I had to give three guys in this market deals for the next year or two, it'd be those three. This means that instead we'll turn around and grab Beimel, Rodney, and Tomo Ohka, but I suppose there's worse things. Probably.