The problem with that approach (IMO) is that if you put together a bullpen with just the kids and any freely-available arms you happened to retain from last year in Buffalo, you don't have a plan B if they turn out to be awful. And 2 out of the last 3 years the Indians have had a brutal pen where everybody went south at once.

If it turns out Sipp, Mujica, Mastny, etc. aren't ready, and you didn't sign any veteran relievers last fall, where do you turn?

I have no problem with these signings per se, but I do have two reservations: first, that Wedge will give them too much time to "find themselves" if Fultz and/or Hernandez (or anybody else in the pen for that matter) pitch badly to start the season. They have been way too slow to pull the trigger on demoting veteran guys who plainly don't have it. Second, these signings give us a little more depth in the pen, but that's it. To make it a good bullpen, Shapiro's still going to have to make a trade.

So ZiPS thinks Fultz is going to get a start? God, I hope not.

Why didn't the Phillies offer arbitration to Fultz? I think this was a mistake on a few levels...

The Indians signed him for what is being reported in Philadelphia as $1.5 million for one year. Fultz made $1.2 million last year. Locally it was specualted that he would not be offered arbitration because the Phillies did not want to risk paying him $2 million or so next year. Number one, you gave up the right to draft pick compensation (Fultz was a Type A free agent) and number two, even if you get "stuck" paying him $2 million on a one-year deal, that is still far from a bad thing. I would rather have Fultz for one year than Borowski or Weathers or God knows who for two or more seasons. I just don't get it.

Can anyone justify the Phils not offering arb to Fultz?