#bullpen

#bullpen

Keller is coming off a breakout year working out of the Cubs bullpen. The 30-year-old righty fired 69 2/3 innings of 2.07 ERA ball. Keller recorded 25 holds and a trio of saves while relinquishing just three leads all year. He was fantastic in the second half, allowing one run while striking out 35 hitters across 27 2/3 frames. He picked up two more saves and a hold while tossing 5 2/3 innings of one-run ball in the playoffs.

General manager Jeff Greenberg said at this week's GM Meetings that the Tigers "are going to prioritize pitching" in the months ahead, even after Jack Flaherty's decision to exercise his $20MM player option filled one rotation spot next season ( link via Evan Woodbery of MLive.com). Greenberg added that the Tigers are open to further rotation additions and "certainly" need to address their bullpen.

By the by, it appears that Alex Anthopoulos spoke to reporters yesterday. While I haven't seen a broad summary of his remarks, we have teeny-tiny snippets like: If you take it at face value, this suggests two-plus serious-money additions at key positions, and then whatever "a lot of relievers" means, which could range from a bunch of cheap deals and speculative adds, to this Front Office's erstwhile-or-maybe-not strategy of dumping a big chunk of payroll into the bullpen for whatever reason.

Veteran reliever Wandy Peralta will forgo the opt-out in his contract, reports Annie Heilbrunn of the San Diego Union-Tribune. Peralta's four-year, $16.5MM contract contained opt-out opportunities after each season. He's exercising a $4.45MM player option for the 2026 season and will have one final player option for the same amount next offseason. Peralta effectively has two years and $8.9MM remaining on his contract, with an opt-out at the midway point.

The workhorse has thrived as a reliever throughout the playoffs, and he's now a critical part of the backend. The 36 year-old came on in a relief role during the six hour and 39 minute Game 3 heartbreak for the Toronto Blue Jays. As you'd suspect, he was as dominant as he could be during his inning of work, not allowing a hit and striking out Enrique Hernández on a 73.3 mph sweeper during an eight pitch inning.

At the start of this year I was still with the A's, and then ended up with the Mariners, and here. Even that was crazy. And then we were at home, and then got to go to Toronto, get added, and I was excited for that. And now, like, you don't ever expect these things, but you got to stay in it mentally and physically just in case.

They still need help there (as evidenced by AA stating that that would be one of the positions "in the discussion" for improvement during this offseason) but at least they won't have to look far when it comes to finding some initial help. Kinley's initial stint with the Braves went about as well as everybody could've hoped for and again, bringing him back on the club option should really be a no-brainer.