J.P. Howell won’t be ready to start the season

The Rays got some bad news yesterday, according to Andrew Friedman, J.P. Howell, coming off of surgery in May, won’t be ready to start the season.

Howell, who many considered one of the Rays best pitchers for the bullpen, simply won’t be healthy enough to start the season. Howell is working hard to recover from arm surgery, but will probably be ready sometime in April.

This is very bad news. The Rays are looking for arms to fill the void in the bullpen and now this news makes finding free agents and searching the farm system even more. Hopefully Howell can return in some form this season and help sure up an already ugly situation in the bullpen.