Something that seemed vaguely true over the past few weeks was put into words by ESPN.com columnist Jayson Stark: There are more closers than there are teams looking for them this off-season.

Available as free agents: Francisco Rodriguez, Brian Fuentes, Trevor Hoffman, Kerry Wood and, depending on how you look at them in your bullpen neighborhood, Jason Isringhausen, Brandon Lyon, Eric Gagne and Juan Cruz. There's also Chad Cordero, who is coming off shoulder surgery and is iffy for Opening Day.

Also, potentially available on the trade market: J.J. Putz, Bobby Jenks, George Sherrill, Huston Street, Jose Valverde and Matt Capps.

Of course, the Brewers almost certainly aren't in for going after the top of that market:

The Brewers will be aggressive -- "but they need two starting pitchers (to replace CC Sabathia and Ben Sheets)," one GM said. "So I don't know how much they can allocate for a closer."

It's hard to say just how much this unnamed GM knows about the Brewers' intentions in terms of finding a closer. They do have some in-house options to fill both the rotation and the closer spot. Yovanni Gallardo will take a rotation spot and Ben Sheets could still conceivably end up back in the Brewer rotation next year. Seth McClung could start or close, and Carlos Villanueva could possibly do both also, though he's not really much of an option to start long term and he doesn't have classic closer stuff.

Ultimately, though, the pitching staff is thin. They probably do need another 200 inning, below league average ERA type pitcher, and those are not cheap. If one isn't available at a reasonable price (either in dollars or players), the glut of relief pitching on the market may allow them to compensate for the inability to improve in that way by building up the relief corps at a cheaper price. A lot of time is rightly focused on trying to build a pitching around having the starters eat a lot of innings so the weaker pitchers in the bullpen don't have to pitch many key "high leverage" innings. If you can't get the starters to chew up the innings, you can have some success making the back of the bullpen better. It's not the best option, but it is possible. If the team can get a late inning arm or two and then slide everyone else back to earlier roles, that helps build the whole staff.

The most important thing to take away from the glut of relievers on the market this winter is that it gives the team a lot of alternative ways to strengthen the pitching staff and it also gives them time to make the final decisions.