Bullpen Breakdown

For the most part, the people in the bullpen are pretty set. Here are the locks

Marmol
Wood
Howry
Eyre
Wuertz

I think we can probably add Pignatiello to this list too, considering how terrible Cotts has looked so far

The last slot is the long reliever - I expect this will be Marshall or Dempster (if he loses out on a rotation spot and we don't trade Marquis).

The question that remains is what everyone's roles will be. Clearly Marmol is our best reliever, but Lou used him the way you're supposed to use your best reliever last season, i.e., putting him in to kill rallies, or to face the heart of the lineup late in the game (but not the 9th inning). I'm hoping that he remains in that role, though I'm worried that he might get overworked. Lou really leaned hard on Marmol last season, but luckily he only got worked during the stretch as opposed to the full season. He showed he still had it in the winter leagues, so maybe he is a little more durable than the typical reliever.

My guess is that Wood will end up with the closer's role, but I bet it will be more of a classical 'Nasty Boys' style of bullpen, where Wood is favored for saves but not the mandatory choice if he's been working for several days.

Bullpen predictions
Wood (Primary Closer) -28 saves, 31 save opps, 60 IP, 65 K, 30 BB, 3.20 ERA, 1.28 WHIP
Howry (Backup Closer) - 9 saves, 10 save opps, 78 IP, 70 K, 15 BB, 3.48 ERA, 1.23 WHIP
Marmol (Fireman) - 2 saves, 2 save opps, 88 IP, 115 K, 40BB, 2.67 ERA, 1.11 WHIP
Wuertz - 70 IP, 72 K, 30 BB, 3.78 ERA, 1.32 WHIP
Eyre - 50 IP, 45 K, 25 BB, 4.12 ERA, 1.39 WHIP
Pignatiello - 35 IP, 20 K, 12 BB, 3.98 ERA, 1.28 WHIP
Marshall (as reliever) - 63 IP, 52 K, 28 BB, 4.84 ERA, 1.44 WHIP

Pignatiello will look pretty good if you isolate his stats against lefties...most LOOGYs have deceptively good statlines because for the most part they are only brought in where they are expected to succeed (see Will Ohman, 2005). The reason why his numbers aren't even lower is that I expect him to pitch in some garbage time as well against a more general sample of batters.