Internal Bullpen Options Available to the Blue Jays

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The past couple weeks has seen a flurry of activity take over Major League Baseball. The action was especially hot over in San Diego at the annual winter meetings, where many of the other teams in baseball traded or signed improvements to their respective clubs.

Among the players signed were a number of top-ranked relievers, such as Andrew Miller and David Robertson. Despite the huge hole left to fill in the bullpen, the Toronto Blue Jays were not on the receiving end of any of these signings. That may seem odd, considering all the surprising offseason moves they made early on in the offseason, but Alex Anthopolous has proven that he can be creative and shouldn’t be counted out yet.

Alex Anthopoulos has already mentioned that the team is actively looking for relief help via the trade market, preferring that to the cost and length of contract being handed out via free agency. However, that bargain may not be available to the Blue Jays, and the team may be forced to ante up or fall back and band-aid the bullpen using options already within the organization.

If no enticing external bullpen options present themselves in the coming month, Anthopolous may be forced to lean more on his internal options instead.Although relying on unproven internal options is always a crapshoot, the Blue Jays do have a few names in their organization who could be poised to step-up and become the next under-the-radar ‘Aaron Loup‘ in Toronto’s bullpen.