Kansas City Bullpen

What a nightmare! And for two years running!

1. The ball gets rolling when Jeremy Affeldt, their second best starting pitcher turned closer, gets hurt.

2. Then a reliever will get a save, and teams everywhere run and pluck him from the free agent pool.

3. The reliever then blows his next save opportunity, and the question arises whether this reliever will retain the closer role.

4. After a week or so of guessing whether this reliever will retain the job and turning down trade offers for this said cheap closer, another save opportunity arrives, and the KC manager uses a different reliever for the save.

5. Repeat steps 2-4.

For two years this has been the pattern. In 2004, Mike MacDougal, Shawn Camp, Jaime Cerda, Justin Huisman, Ryan Bukvich and Nate Field turned the screws. This year, Mike MacDougal, Ambriorix Burgos, Mike Wood and Mike MacDougal again have caused the Roto pain.

I wish there was some method of seeing through this morass of incompetence, but there is not. (Notice that the 2004 relievers aren't any good in 2005 either.)

My method is to make minimal effort to pick-up the one-save-opp du jour if I have an open roster spot at the time but to take no extraordinary efforts. This means I do not try to trade for another team's open roster spot or leave a roster spot open in hopes of something happening sometime in the near future.

Nor do I lose any sleep if a close competitor grabs him. Bid on Burgos? A move that must be done by someone but no loss to me. Replace a DL player with Mike Wood? Gotta do it but not by trading a good reserve player to get him.

This is also the method I use with Colorado closers. However, KC is not COL, and I must be willing to change course if something arises to alter this inexplicable pattern of gross incompetence.