Cavaet emptor.

Those two words should be heeded by many teams who are looking to dip their toes in the free agency market to upgrade their relief corps, the Mets in particular. Bullpen arms are rarely consistant from year to year. There are few players who pitch out of the bullpen that are able to duplicate their success year after year.

Danys Baez, Arthur Rhodes, Kyle Farnsworth, Tom Gordon and Hector Carrasco were highly sought when they performed at a high level one year only to crash and burn the next. This year the market is flush with names such as Scott Linebrink, Jeremy Affeldt, Ron Mahay, Eric Gagne and Francisco Cordero who will all draw interest.

On SI.com, Tom Verducci, warns that free agent relief shopping is dangerous, and gets San Diego GM Kevin Towers to offer some suggestions on how to navigate the waters. Last season, Towers acquired Cla Meredith, Doug Brocail, Heath Bell, Kevin Cameron and Justin Hampson at the combined talent cost of Jon Atkins, Ben Johnson and Doug Mirabelli and had arguably one of the best bullpens in baseball.

His advice is to target failing starters who throw strikes and convert them into relievers (hello, Mike Pelfrey, is that you?), don’t just throw anyone into the set up role in the 8th inning (hello, Willie Randolph, are you listening?), look for pitchers with deception in their delivery, and stay away from the top end of the free agent relief market.

Verducci’s article is a must read as I feel that this is one of the biggest issues the Mets must tackle this off-season.