The Milwaukee Brewers bullpen thinned a bit on Tuesday — Salomon Torres announced his retirement.  After a 12-year Major League career, the 36-year-old Torres has decided to hang it up for good.

In ‘08, Torres went 7-5 with 28 saves in 71 games for the Brewers.  He posted a 3.49 ERA and took over the closing duties after injuries and ineffectiveness altered the bullpen early in the season.

For his career, the Dominican right-hander pitched for the Giants, Mariners, Expos and Pirates before joining the Brewers in ‘08 for his final Major League season.  In 497 games — 64 of them starts — Torres went 44-58 with 57 saves and posted a lifetime ERA of 4.31. 

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Are Trevor Hoffman’s days in San Diego numbered?  Looks like the Major League career saves leader could be moving on after the Padres withdrew their $4 million offer with a $4 million option for ‘10 to Hoffman. 

After the announcement, Hoffman’s agent said that his client will no longer deal with the Padres.  According to an MLB.com report, Padres’ chief executive Sandy Alderson said he is still open to meeting with their long time closer.

Hoffman converted 30 of 34 save opportunities, his lowest save total since injuries sidelined him in 2003.  His 3.77 ERA was also the highest ERA posted by Hoffman since 1995.  The two-time Cy Young runner-up and six-time All-Star led the National League in saves in 1998 and 2006 and has 554 career saves, the most in Major League history.

Hoffman joined the Padres during his first Major League season as part of a trade that sent Gary Sheffield and Rich Rodriguez to the Florida Marlins.  2008 was the 41-year-old’s 16th season with San Diego.

If things aren’t ironed out between the Padres and Hoffman, reliever Heath Bell is the heir apparent to San Diego’s closer role.

Tiny Tim Lincecum was crowned the National League biggest pitching honor today, winning the leagues’ Cy Young award.  Lincecum, who collected 23 of the 32 first place votes and 137 total points in balloting, beat out Arizona’s Brandon Webb by a healthy margin.  Webb and Johan Santana each totaled 4 first place votes a piece, with Webb totaling 73 total points and Santana finishing 3rd with 55. CC Sabathia received the remaining 1st place vote but fell short of the top 3 in total points.

In just his second season in the majors, Lincecum finished with an 18-5 record, a 2.62 ERA, and a major league leading 265 K’s.  Lincecum also lead the National League in winning percentag (.783), ranked second in ERA behind Santana, and accounted for 25% of the wins for the 4th place Giants.  Lincecum is just the second San Francisco Giant to win the Cy Young Award since Mike McCormick did in 1967.

I’ve sort of adopted the American League Central as my second home. I have no natural ties to any of the teams. Yes, I’m following the Kansas City Royals — more or less because they once had a proud tradition, now are struggling to survive, and came into MLB the same year as my Padres. I have a soft spot for the Tigers because I caught one of their games at the old stadium in their amazing ‘84 season. I once spent a night in Minneapolis.

Chicago? Cleveland? Well, I’ve driven through those towns — even got a nice glimpse of Jacobs Field on my way back from Cooperstown after Tony Gwynn’s induction into the Hall of Fame. Good enough, let’s talk about the Indians.

According to Anthony Castrovince at Indians.com, the Tribe will be looking to add some infield talent this winter. As Castrovince notes:

If the Tribe’s first priority isn’t to land an infielder, it should be. The team has learned it cannot reasonably rely on Andy Marte to man third or Josh Barfield to handle second.

The snarky response is that the Indians shouldn’t have traded Kevin Kouzmanoff for Barfield in November 2006. Then they would need to find only a second baseman. Of course, hindsight is 20-20. Marte and Barfield both had chinks in their proverbial armor and came with risk, but both looked like fairly solid value propositions. Sometimes things work out the way we plan, other times not so much.

But snark doesn’t build ballclubs, so Mark Shapiro and his cohorts will have to evaluate the market for actual answers. If answers aren’t available on their budget, then maybe suggestions will have to suffice.

Names bandied about in the article include Casey Blake, Joe Crede, Garrett Atkins, Ty Wigginton, and Mark Teahen. Hey, you in the back, stop yawning!

Blake is basically Aaron Boone without the defense. He’s also 35 years old. If a team can sign him for cheap, then great. Trouble is, the list of free agent third basemen is incredibly lean this winter. If there are multiple bidders, then Blake may command more than reason dictates he ought to be worth. The Indians don’t strike me as a team that can afford to play that game.

Crede is kind of the anti-Blake. He’s coming off surgery, which is always a risk, but if healthy, he provides above-average defense and the occasional home run. Again, given the market, someone may overpay for Crede in the hope that he’ll regain the form he displayed in 2006. The 30 homers from that season are shiny, but in truth, he was merely adequate, which is better than he is most years.

Of the trade options, Atkins probably is the most appealing. That said, his numbers have been in decline, and away from Coors Field, he owns a career batting line of .260/.328/.424, which looks suspiciously like a cross between Blake and Crede.

Wigginton? His two most similar hitters through age 30 are Boone and Crede. Pass.

Teahen is a slightly better Crede but hasn’t played third base regularly in two years. Still, he’s relatively young and relatively cheap, which raises the question of why the Royals would be looking to move him.

Back to the free-agent market: Mike Lamb? Uh, no. Ramon Vazquez? Eh, not really. Doug Mientkiewicz? He’s not a third baseman; what the heck is he doing here? Huh, turns out he played 33 games at the position in ‘08. There’s anonymity, and then there’s playing for the Pirates.

Do not give up hope. I see one intriguing name here: Russell Branyan. He started in the Indians organization, he probably won’t cost a lot, and nobody seems interested in giving him a chance. Branyan may or may not be able to handle an everyday job at this point — we don’t know because we’ve never seen him try — but he seems like a fairly decent low-risk, potentially medium-reward pickup, which is the kind of bet small- to mid-market teams should be making.

Either he plays well for minimal investment, in which case everyone pats themselves on the back, or he stinks, in which case you go back to the drawing board and try Plan B. It’s not like you’re going to be kicking yourself in August for missing out on the likes of Blake and Crede. Heck, at that point, you can just grab a random thirtysomething from the minors — are Scott McClain and Kevin Orie still playing?

For my money (and I have the distinct advantage of offering none), Branyan is worth a look. Do I think he’s the answer? Not really. More of a suggestion…