Alex Anthopoulos

We wanted to get him signed back.

You know, that was, as I mentioned, it's a conversation we had as a front office in July.

We looked ahead.

I think I mentioned at the trade deadline our offseason started at that time.

So that was one of the discussions we had of, you know, do we want to bring this guy back?

What are the alternatives?

And so on.

And we knew him well.

We thought he'd had a rough start, but all the underlying indicators were good.

And we wanted to keep him for the durability aspect.

He's a phenomenal teammate.

He's a great fit.

We just know him so well.

But, look, I think having the anchor in the bullpen –

it just sets things up.

It helps the manager.

You know, again, I, you know, I'm sure Walt would agree with that.

I don't want to speak for him, but having set up and knowing that your ninth inning is settled and then you can build around that behind that and so on.

And obviously we've got Dylan Lee who's back and a lot of other guys, but you know, we still have other work to do.

I think I mentioned this at the GM meetings, you know, we need a lot of relievers.