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We were all surprised when Kent Mercker showed up at camp this year, and even more surprised when he put up decent numbers out of the pen.
His spring numbers were okay, but if Mercker faces any RH hitters this year look out... with the stuff I saw he's gonna get clobbered from the right side.
Hopefully he'll just be a lefty specialist. Like a one and done type pitcher. I can live with that. If he gets hammered has as an ERA north of 5, I'd imagine he'll be gone in a month.
A 27 y/o Coutlangus gets cut to make room for a 40 y/o Mercker who hasn't pitched since his 28 innings in 2006. Coutlangus had a 4.39 ERA last year and ranked 4th in the bullpen last year, behind 3rd place Salmon who also got cut, then Weathers and Burton. So you get 4 RP who had a ERA under 4.50, and cut two of them. But guys like Coffee - 5.82 , Lincon - hasn't pitched in 3 years all get their chance. We need guys in the bullpen with upside, not broken down/old pitchers.
Well to be fair, Salmon wasn't cut - he was traded.
But yeah, not happy about cutting Coutlangus.
Not happy about Coutlangus at all. Every game I went to last year he did decent. Coffy went down to Triple A I think two times, and every time he came running to the mound last year. He got booed because we knew that the game was over.