Of course you can. The Yankees lost this year because of starting pitching, not the bullpen. Good starting pitching and a good closer will hide most bullpen problems.

Cash has said he is going to be a middle reliever , which means he will eat innings while barely pitching with the game on the line? Or at least something to that effect?

The setup man comes down to Farnsy ( can Girardi and being in his walk year kick start him? ) and a bunch of unknowns like Patterson , Britton , Bruney , Albadalejo, Veras, Ohlendorf, Ramirez? This worries me as I can see Joba going back to the role he was in last year , if one of these guys can’t get it done. I don’t want to see that and truly hope one of the aforementioned can grab the set up job…or possibly Humberto or Cox later in the year?

why? it happens all the time.

who were these relievers the Sox had on Feb 1?

they had Piniero, Donnelly, JC Romero…

and who were the guys that emerged? DelCarmen, Lopez, Snyder, Okajima.

in other words, none of the guys they were really counting on were the ones who carried the load. those were guys who were more or less inexperienced.

all of the “veterans” they signed all crapped the bed and were injured or released.

Viz was god awful early. Good middle. Terrible late.

We had 2 relievers we could count on by October and you cannot win in the playoffs like that.

Tough to have tryouts and auditions thru the yr for key pen roles.

so that example doesn’t really prove your point.

just like Tom Gordon and Mariano Rivera were the guys who blew the game in the 2004 ALCS.

you are just spouting a bunch of nonsense. “i want as many 2.5 guys as possible”? no shit. who doesn’t?

but that just isn’t very realistic. those guys don’t grow on trees. who are these guys that put up ERAs around 2.50 every year and are willing to take setup roles? how do you get these guys?

“i reject the idea that RP are often erratic”. what does that mean? you reject reality?

who did you want the Yankees to sign?

RAB cited the “81-4 after 8 innings” statistic, which surprised me too. and i credit your point that there was lots of BP overuse by torre, and a freakish injury total (but you omit that vizcaino was horrible in the first half well before he burnt out, if that’s even what happened).

talk about 81-4, but when push came to shove against CLE, their BP defeated ours in game 2 and the series was effectively finished. that game doesn’t show up in the 81-4 stat, but there went the season. i don’t want a string of 3.75 guys there. i want as many 2.5 guys as possible, and SUPPLEMENT with young arms and back end starters for the playoffs. you don’t enter a season w/ a $200M payroll and one quality reliever. we keep doing it, and it keeps costing us in october. and i reject the idea that RPs are often erratic, so therefore it’s a bad idea to pay for them. we pay millions for bench players, we should do our best to find guys who excel to pitch the 7th and 8th.