Willie Collazo: 5.2 IP, 7 H, 0 HR, 4 ER, 0 K, 5 BB, 6.35 ERA, 2.118 WHIP
Pedro Feliciano: 12.2 IP, 13 H, 1 HR, 5 ER, 19 K, 6 BB, 3.55 ERA, 1.500 WHIP
Aaron Heilman: 17.2 IP, 10 H, 0 HR, 4 ER, 14 K, 6 BB*, 2.04 ERA, 0.849 WHIP
Phil Humber: 3 IP, 3 H, 0 HR, 1 ER, 2 K, 0 BB, 3.00 ERA, 1.000 WHIP
Guillermo Mota: 13.1 IP, 12 H, 1 HR, 6 ER, 10 K, 5 BB, 4.05 ERA, 1.275 WHIP
Scott Schoeneweis: 9.2 IP, 7 H, 2 HR, 5 ER, 9 K, 3 BB, 4.66 ERA, 1.034 WHIP
Aaron Sele: 6 IP, 11 H, 1 HR, 5 ER, 2 K, 1 BB, 7.50 ERA, 2.000 WHIP
Joe Smith: 5.2 IP, 8 H, 1 HR, 4 ER, 9 K, 3 BB*, 6.35 ERA, 1.941 WHIP
Jorge Sosa: 12.1 IP, 13 H, 1 HR, 11 K, 5 BB, 6.57 ERA, 1.459 WHIP
Billy Wagner: 10 IP, 8 H, 1 HR, 4 ER, 9 K, 2 BB, 3.60 ERA, 1.000 WHIP
Dave Williams: 1 IP, 2 H, 1 HR, 3 ER, 0 K, 1 BB, 27.00 ERA, 3.000 WHIP

 * For Heilman and Smith, the BB figures include 1 HBP each.

What can we glean from this?

1. Willie had too much faith in Sosa, who got a lot of work in September despite performing poorly.
2. Sele was clearly at the end of the string; I don’t know whether he’s officially retired but he hasn’t pitched this year.
3. The common perception that Smith was out of gas was correct, but so was the impression that he could be effective in the future.
4. Wagner was pretty good but not on par with his overall numbers for the season.
5. Schoeneweis was below average, but remember that Willie never realized that he showed all year long that he couldn’t get right handed hitters out; I don’t have a split of the split to verify that he was effective against lefties in September, but I’m pretty sure we all agreed he could be useful as a lefty specialist.
6. Feliciano was pretty good and struck out a ton of guys in September.
7. Heilman was great.

So we got rid of the dead weight (Collazo, Mota, Sele, Sosa, Williams) and held onto the guys who were effective (Wagner, Heilman, Feliciano) and the guys who gave us a reason to believe they might be useful in 2008 (Smith, Schoeneweis). Humber, of course, was part of the Santana deal. (If you’re curious, he was decent but not dominant in AAA this year as predominantly a starter, and has been similarly decent but not great in four relief appearances as a September callup.)

So I think I agree with Reg – a complete overhaul wasn’t necessary. I think Omar had every reason to believe that Wags, Heilman and Pedro Dos would be a good top three this year. But you’re right about live young arms – in 2006 we had Ring and Bell and Owens (though Ring has been miserable for the Braves this year and Owens hasn’t pitched at all – did he get hurt?), whereas this year other than a sprinkling of Kunz and Parnell we’ve seen a LOT of has-beens and never-wases like Figueroa, Vargas, Muniz, Rincon, Wise, Knight.

Sorry, I know that was really long.