The Toronto Blue Jays entered the offseason knowing that the team’s bullpen would look drastically different on Opening Day 2011 than it did last October. While Jason Frasor decided to accept Toronto’s arbitration offer rather than testing the market as a Type A free agent, fellow Type A Scott Downs signed a three-year deal with the Angels, and Type B free agent Kevin Gregg is expected to pitch out of someone else’s ‘pen next year. Attempting to compensate for those relief losses, the Jays have reportedly signed Octavio Dotel to a one-year, $3.5 million deal. Dotel’s pact pays him $2.75 million in 2011, with a $3.75 million club option for 2012 that includes a $750K buyout.

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Last week’s post examined offense in the American League through the prism of capital and labor. This week, it’s the National League’s turn.

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Chris Cwik will swing by at 3:00 pm eastern time for his inaugural chat here on FanGraphs. Come meet the new guy and talk baseball for an hour or so.

While the market for relief pitchers has been brisk, there’s one group of players that have generally been ignored so far this winter – designated hitters. Thanks to the glut of available bat-only players, teams with open spots at DH have been content to sit around and let the off-season play out, and it looks like we’ll head into January with a half dozen or so designated hitters still looking for jobs; Vladimir Guerrero, Manny Ramirez, Jim Thome, Johnny Damon, Russell Branyan, and for a team with a serious appetite for risk, Nick Johnson.

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On some level, it’s simple to say that each of the Big-4 sports in Northern America are different. Baseball doesn’t have a clock; the NHL uses a puck; the NBA uses a hoop; the NFL has downs.

Yes, I’m being over simplistic here, but on the salary side, the distance between MLB and its other Big-4 brethren diverge further still.

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On Monday, the Mets traded left-hander Michael Antonini for the Dodgers’ future shortstop of the past – Chin-Lung Hu. Though the move didn’t include any top prospects, it may have real implications for the Mets going forward.

Antonini does pitch with his left hand, and may be close to the major leagues (the 25-year-old just finished his second stint at Triple-A), but he looks like he’s headed to the bullpen. His fastball tops out around 89 MPH and though he controls it well to both sides of plate – as evidenced by his 2.1 career minor league walk rate – he owns only a mediocre changeup otherwise. He also hasn’t been able to rack up the strikeouts you’d like to see out of a future major-league rotation stalwart (7.0 K/9 career, 6.1 at Triple-A Buffalo). Perhaps he can be a LOOGY. Here’s a little more about him from Toby Hyde at MetsMinorLeagueBlog.

From the Dodgers’ perspective, they may feel that they have traded a backup shortstop for a left-handed bullpen option that might be able to help them this year.

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After improving its starting rotation with the acquisitions of Shaun Marcum and Zack Greinke, the Brewers have moved onto other aspects of team building. On offense the team appears set, as they’re returning seven of the eight starters who contributed to the team’s 110 wRC+ last season, which ranked third in the majors. Where the team could use some fortification is in the bullpen. It has addressed this by signing Takashi Saito to a one-year contract.

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The representatives of Brandon Webb and the Texas Rangers front office managed to take some time out of their undoubtedly busy Boxing Day schedule to agree to a one-year contract. Terms of the deal have not been released as of Sunday night, but the deal is “incentive-laden,” according to Nick Piecoro. If this deal fits into the market of Rich Harden and Erik Bedard type market, we can be fairly sure that the deal will pay Webb less than $4-5 million guaranteed.

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Brad Hawpe wasn’t the only former Colorado Rockies’ slugger to find a new team over the holiday weekend. For the second consecutive winter, Garrett Atkins will attempt to re-establish himself with a perennial cellar-dweller. The Baltimore phase of his mission went stunningly poor, so his new (minor league) deal with the Pittsburgh Pirates couldn’t possibly go any worse, could it?
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