Hey, that's what he said.

"I'm not going to talk about Rodney and Zumaya any more," Leyland said. "They're not here. Hopefully some guys will step up. Right now, we don't know who those guys are . . . I'm not going to talk about Rodney and Zumaya the rest of the spring."

The Tigers rotation is set, but the situation in the bullpen could not be more different.  Let's see what the starting five looks like, with their project ERA in parenthesis (proj. by Bill James):

LHP Justin Verlander (3.70)
RHP Jeremy Bonderman (4.11)
RHP Kenny Rogers (4.22)
LHP Dontrelle Willis (4.22)
LHP Nate Robertson (4.40)

Last season, the rotation in Motown ranked 18th in the majors with a 4.68 ERA and the bullpen finished 23rd with a 4.37 ERA.

The team was able to convert only 68% of its save opportunities, which was exactly the American League average last year.


In the bullpen, LHP Bobby Seay, RHP Tim Byrdak, RHP Zach Miner were the stars for pitchers with at least 50 IP, but honorable mentions must go to 22-year-old Yorman Bazardo, a right-handed starter (in the minors) that made 9 of his 11 appearances out of the relief corp.
 
If we watch the closer, Todd Jones' stats over the past three years, it's clear that he does the job, with 40, 37 and 38 saves. However, the other numbers can be stressful if you are a Tigers fan:

*His ERA has ballooned to 4.26 from 2.10 in 2005.
*His WHIP has gone from 1.03 to 1.42.
*His BB/9 has gone up to 3.38 from 1.73.

When we look at his pitches thrown, he can still dial it up in the low-90s, but actually threw a lot more curve balls and change-ups last season.  With his ability to spot his fastball as good as anyone, he lost the advantage that he had over other pitchers: keep the ball on the ground.

His GB% went under 50% for the first time in three years (45.9%, a 7% drop from 2006) and he would be well-advised to use his fastball more, just like he did in 2005-06, when his career came back to life.

With all these info in hand and after examining the projected bullpen, it may not be a good situation, but there's still hope.  If Denny Bautista found something in his mechanics or overall approach that's currently helping him dominate in Spring Training, he could eat up a lot of innings for the club. Then again, that's a long shot.

The Tom Verducci article continues (full of great tidbits in the second page, BTW):

Call it set-up by committee. Byrdak, Grilli, Miner and Seay actually pitched fairly well last season. And Bautista has been a Grapefruit League weapon, going unscored upon. But none of them have been asked to get many big outs very late in games, which is why the bullpen will be the reason many people will be picking Cleveland to win the Central.

I'm not writing off Detroit so quickly. First of all, Leyland is a master at bullpen management. He won in Pittsburgh without having a prototypical modern bullpen built around a true closer. In 1991, for instance, he had seven different players with at least two saves. (No playoff team ever had more multi-save pitchers since the save became an official statistic in 1969.)

Exactly.

On top of it, you have Aquilino Lopez, a 32-year-old journeyman right-hander who has great career splits against right-handed batters (.557 OPS). He has the following line with Detroit in ST: 1.80 ERA, 10 IP, 5 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, 12 K. 

Bazardo, mentioned above, could very well be a great option for long relief, with very good numbers against righties and a change-up that could keep lefties honest all-season long.  He used it 31% of the time in 2007 and mixes in a fastball (tops in the low-90s) and a slider (average of 83 mph).

With the management team saying they will go with 7 pitchers in the bullpen, Bautista and Lopez seem to remain the last piece of the puzzle, because Jones, Byrdak, Grilli, Miner, Bazardo, and Seay all have their role and opportunity to impress in 2008.