Aside from closer, Tigers' bullpen is a big concern

If Todd Jones can keep the Tigers' shaky bullpen afloat, he'll deserve a big tip of the cap from his teammates. AP

TAMPA, Fla. -- The two most talked about pitchers in the Detroit camp couldn't get me out, and Tigers manager Jim Leyland is sick of it. He's sick not about the stuff of relievers Fernando Rodney and Joel Zumaya, both of whom are sidelined indefinitely with shoulder problems, but the constant chatter about when they might be back or who might replace them.

"I'm not going to talk about Rodney and Zumaya any more," Leyland said. "They're not here. Hopefully some guys will step up. Right now, we don't know who those guys are . . . I'm not going to talk about Rodney and Zumaya the rest of the spring."

Go figure. Tigers owner Mike Ilitch blows open the budget for offseason acquisitions Edgar Renteria, Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis, spending the most money in the AL, non-heavyweight division (excludes New York and Boston). Detroit has an offense that could be as fun as the Cleveland teams from the 1990s and may even push 1,000 runs. The Tigers have become a huge drawing card. Willis is throwing in the low 90s. And yet is it possible that it all goes kaput just because one relief pitcher blows out his shoulder moving boxes during a wildfire (Zumaya) and another turns up sore in spring training (Rodney), where he has yet to throw an inning?

Said one GM, "Their problem is they cleaned out the cupboard in the Cabrera trade. I don't know that they have the pieces any more to go get the parts they need."

The Tigers have a closer, Todd Jones, who turns 40 in April and needs reliable set-up men because he needs to start innings clean and he's not a workhorse. Jones has 75 saves for Detroit in the past two years, but none of them involved getting more than three outs. That's why Ilitch's best plans, and cash, may be riding on Tim Byrdak, Jason Grilli, Zach Miner, Bobby Seay, Denny Bautista and an even less renowed pitcher to be named. Who are those guys? That's exactly the point.

"It'll be a bullpen of seven guys," Leyland said, providing an unintentional sobriquet that doesn't quite rank up there with The Nasty Boys. "Other than Todd Jones, we're going to mix and match. They'll get opportunities to do the job. If they don't, we're in trouble. It's that simple."

Call it set-up by committee. Byrdak, Grilli, Miner and Seay actually pitched fairly well last season. And Bautista has been a Grapefruit League weapon, going unscored upon. But none of them have been asked to get many big outs very late in games, which is why the bullpen will be the reason many people will be picking Cleveland to win the Central.

I'm not writing off Detroit so quickly. First of all, Leyland is a master at bullpen management. He won in Pittsburgh without having a prototypical modern bullpen built around a true closer. In 1991, for instance, he had seven different players with at least two saves. (No playoff team ever had more multi-save pitchers since the save became an official statistic in 1969.)

I also remember that the Red Sox went to camp last year with Joel Piniero in the mix to be their closer and the Rockies opened the season with Byung-Hyun Kim and Rodrigo Lopez in their rotation. The season is very long. It is dangerous to make assumptions on snapshots in spring training. Maybe Rodney returns in May or June. Maybe Zumaya can make it back for the second half. Maybe Francisco Cruceta finally solves his visa problem in the Dominican Republic and actually reports to the team. Maybe Bautista is this year's Rafael Betancourt, a division-changing set-up guy who comes out of nowhere. (Okay, that last one is a bit of stretch. Bautista, 27, has a career 6.93 ERA with the Orioles, Royals and Rockies.)

The point is that Ilitch literally has too much invested in this team to let his fortune sink with a cast of no-name relievers. If the Tigers don't have answers in house, which include a return by Rodney or Zumaya in the first half, they will be aggressive looking for them elsewhere. Despite all the bulpen talk now that's turning Leyland cranky, it's more likely the Tigers' season will be determined less by the bullpen than by whether starters Willis, Nate Robertson and Jeremy Bonderman all bounce back from showing wear and tear last season.

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