In a normal season, we'd have a month - even two - to develop this bullpen. You would hope that out of the two injured guys (Suarez, Arano), the two #5 starters (VV, Pivetta) and the patchwork of waiver pick-ups and prospects, two actual useful pitchers would emerge. And then you make a trade or tap someone from the minors accordingly. This year it's not an option, and now we can't even spare one of the two starters.
But the bullpen is only performing about as well as it should. The hitters have to show up a lot more.
At least we don't have Kimbrel.
I agree Klentak is ultimately responsible for the poor salary/roster construction, but I don't think he makes any of last year's win-now moves without orders from above. (I mean, they still would have signed Harper and Robertson and Cutch, but he would have happily waited another year to see what Crawford and Alfaro had. Though, a lot of it also seems to stem from the fact that they planned for Manny for years, and then things changed).
