And, since I already used up my awesome “Hello, Good Baez” headline, we’re just all going to have to settle for this crap I came up with in two seconds.

Eat your green beans or Brad Lidge will come in to pitch the 9th.

I guess my questions are sprouting from the bullpen being the last part of the plan to be dealt with.  The bench wasn’t as good as it was in 2008, Pedro Feliz failed to produce in some key opportunities, but the 2009 Philadelphia Phillies bullpen was a monster living under the bed.  Brad was useless, Madson kept flirting with success, only to turn around and have it throw a drink in his face, Romero and Condrey wound up under the knife… there was a reason we had to demand a lot of innings from starters, especially in the playoffs and then the World Series.

And then, when there was someone pitching who wasn’t Cliff Lee, we would have to turn to this bullpen and hope for the best.  Sometimes that wasn’t enough either.

What I’m saying is, and I know Ruben believes in his “a lot-for-a-little” strategy, and has met a bunch of success with it, but why wait until the bank’s already broken before signing players to fix what was clearly the ingrown toe nail of the team last year, the bullpen?

Look at Danys Baez.  Not him, but his numbers.  I’ve put them up here before, and by baseball standards, they’re not good.  4-6, 4.02 ERA, 59 H, 22 BB, 40 K, blah blah blah.  He also missed 2008 because of… WHOA NOW!  Elbow surgery. Sounds familiar.  And dangerous.  But, it wasn’t five months ago that I was whining about somebody, anybody, other than Brad Lidge closing, just to see what it was like, so having the option there isn’t a bad thing.

And some might say its not fair to judge a guy based on a season where he is rebounding from surgery. So FINE. WHATEVER.

The signing also means that the epic saga of Chan Ho Park’s “Let’s Make this Difficult” campaign has come to a close. Where will he go?  What will he do?  Somewhere out there, he’s hoping he can be crammed into the ever-closing window of a starter’s role on a team with a chance in hell at winning the World Series.

The next decade may be cruel to Chan Ho Park’s dreams.  Take some cues from the FanSided network.  Eternal optimism? Hope for the best?

Welcome to the job market, Chan Ho!  It’s terrible.