Meek, Hanrahan are locks in ‘pen; Pirates evaluating relievers

Evan Meek and Joel Hanrahan are the only two relievers guaranteed to be a part of the Pirates bullpen next season.

The Pirates decided to end the season with a 13 man bullpen in order to evaluate each pitcher and his future with the team. It also allows Manager John Russell enough arms to get through the final month of the season.

“I am liking the fact that it doesn’t look like we’re going to have to bring in a multitude of arms like we have in the past,” he said. “I think internally, we have some guys with us now — [injured pitchers Kevin] Hart and [Jose] Ascanio will be in the mix as well — that we’ve got some pretty good options to put together a pretty strong bullpen.

“We’ve got a lot of good arms. That will be up to us over this off-season period to start piecing that together. The internal options are the ones that we’re excited about going into next year because we have not had that these last couple of years.”

Chris Resop has emerged as a possible lock-up for next season as well. The Club likes what they see from Resop as a middle reliever, working well in the 7th inning.

Some long relief options for the 2011 season could come from Daniel McCutchen, Jeff Karstens and Joe Martinez.

General Manager Neal Huntington did a great job piecing together the Bullpen for the 2010 season (through free-agency) and could consider some more choices during the winter months.