....."There are a lot of free agent relievers coming off of strong years such as Jake McGee, Mike Minor, Brandon Morrow, Pat Neshek, Addison Reed, Bryan Shaw, Joe Smith and Anthony Swarzak."
That could give you McGee, Shaw, Strop, Swarzak, Edwards, Wilson, Montgomery for the pen.
I like your line of thinking, blue. Brett Cecil was $30.5/4 for Cardinals, Cubs have plenty of discretionary money for a couple of guys like that. Koji was $6. So you'd think if they figured to commit $25-30/year on FA relievers over the next 3 years, that would chew up a chunk of their cash, but they could reshape the bullpen pretty significantly.
Not sure the pen will become a strength, money doesn't buy success, and it may be a problem again. And there is something to having a known, trusted, confident, shut-down guy for the 9th inning, so that not every 9th inning is an ordeal.
But, despite the late-season failures, Edwards and Strop and pre-Cub-Wilson gave a lot of good innings during the season. Montgomery too. I think Theo's comments about trying to throw more strikes and being less afraid of hard contact might be good for each of those guys.
With the weirdness of relievers, it's not inconceivable that Wilson will come back and be quite effective. Or that Rondon might show up healthy, get locked in, and give a very good season.
Obviously very different to give enough competent innings in the regular season to get into the playoffs; without actually being a knockout shut-down guy in the playoffs. Should be interesting to see how they spend their money relief-wise.