I once thought Coco would get BJ Ryan money, but now in this market I think Linebrink may get near that ($8-10M/yr) to close for somebody and Coco will definitely be one of the highest paid pitchers in the game.  But if we want to contend I think we have to resign 1 of the 2.

I disagree with roguejim in that I think Turnbow is one of the more effective setup men in the game.  His .183 BAA and 10.7 K/9 are exactly what we need in our pen.  He's relatively cheap in this market.  And if we lose both Coco and Linebrink meet our new closer ;).

That article gives me great optimism for next year because it's obvious Melvin knows what he's doing.  He recognizes the flaws of the team and he knows he needs a closer and better pen management.  I look for him to give a bank-breaking offer to Coco and it'll still be less than what another team gives him.  I also suspect he'll make another trade to get rid of what's left in our farm system for bullpen or defensive help.  Let's hope Z has another great draft next year with all our compensatory picks!

This means that for the first time (in my memory) we are actually in a position to "get rid of what's left in our farm system" in order to get us over the hump, which is an exciting position to be in regardless of whether or not we want actually want to do that.  Still, we might be one of the teams in the league where a few extra wins means a lot of extra money (playoff revenue).

But who are these "couple of OBP guys" that he has his eyes on?  It seems to me that simply having Gabe Gross take over for Jenkins could provide a boost of 60-70 OBP points in-house, while saving about $8mm.  I really think we could bat Gross second against RHP and see an .850 OPS from him.  Put that money towards CoCo.

I'm kind of with balldeagle on the Turnbow thing.  He's sporadic, but more often than not he gets the job done, and at any rate he's cheap.

As much as I like to see big moves, I'm just not sure what we can do to improve ourselves that much.  The bullpen is a definite issue, but that is more likely to be solved by "smaller" moves than anything major.  In fact, I'd like to see Steve Bray get a real shot as a closer or set-up guy next year, but we probably have some money to work with, too.  Thus, relievers available via free agency this off-season:

Scot Shields
David Riske (team option)
Ron Mahay
J.C. Romero
Hitoki Iwase (Japan)
Octavio Dotel (player option)
Jorge Julio
Kerry Wood
Al Reyes (team option)
Masahide Kobayashi (Japan)
LaTroy Hawkins
Francisco Cordero
Scott Linebrink

It looks to me like there are a couple of guys we might look into, depending on the price.  Personally, the most interesting name here is Iwase, who is probably the best relief pitcher in the Nippon Pros, and is a lefty to boot.  Kobayashi is also very good.  I'd much rather go after one of these guys than mess around with Linebrink.

As far as catchers: Jorge Posada?  ;-)

As for the Crew, I think it would be worth kicking the tires.  To imagine a 3-4-5 of some mix of Bay, Braun, and Fielder is to imagine success.  The fact that the Pirates want Garza in return from the Twins means we'd be looking at Villanueva and then some.