It wasn’t for lack of trying, Al Avila said.
The Detroit Tigers have tried to build a bullpen. But the past couple of years has seen their big signing – Joe Nathan – crumble, their small signings such as Joba Chamberlain and Tom Gorzelanny too short for the tall task and, once again, in 2015, their bullpen was bad.
“The bullpen has always been a mystery to a lot of clubs,” Avila said Thursday morning on MLB Network. “Not just the Detroit Tigers.”
And the best-case scenario in bolstering it, Avila said, is through the team’s farm system, with homegrown talent coming to fruition at the major league level.