The St. Louis Cardinals' bullpen is more solid-looking going into the 2013 season than it has been in years. Granted: Part of it's the nickname. Jason Motte, Mitchell Boggs, and Edward Mujica are fine right-handed relievers in their own right, but as MuBogMot they're a coherent, reptilian whole. And you don't get a lot of coherent wholes in a bullpen, particularly two years running.

Add in Choateczynski—left-handed chimera name pending—and you're nearly all the way through the Opening Day bullpen. A 12-man staff leaves you with two spots, to be divvied among Fernando Salas and/or two classes of minor league pitchers.

Relief lifers

The relief lifers have mostly seen better days. Maikel Cleto, after pitching well-enough in the rotation to confuse all the people who assumed he'd be a reliever, struggled last year upon his conversion to relief. His peripherals were pretty good, so I expect better in 2013, but in general it's not a great time to be Maikel Cleto—everybody's co-opted his hard-throwing schtick.

Meanwhile: Eduardo Sanchez. Sanchez was a mess last year, enough of a mess to serve as our annual reminder that relievers will break your heart and are not to be trusted, not even when their slider is death.