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About the 8-man bullpen. 12 arms is more standard.
A 3-man bench, with a back-up catcher, is a 2-man bench. That's a short bench.
Ruggiano/Sucre-Hicks/Taylor-Miller and ?
Bloomie, unfortunately.....Although I would prefer Romero in that role.
The critical signing will be our RF'er. Having a guy that could go to 1B will be important. I could actually see us signing a 1B/DH to a one year contract and moving Cruz to RF for 120 games.
A 3-man bench puts a huge amount of stress on the day-to day injury decisions. If a guy is going to be out 5 days...and your bench is down to 2 (really just 1 if you're talking about keeping a catcher in reserve) then you almost have to 15-Day the 5-day guy.