Harden does throw 98 consistently, when he's healthy. When we made the trade, I remember someone linking to an A's blog where they basically said they knew he wasn't healthy because he wasn't hitting 98-99 anymore. When he first came over, he had a few games where he was in the upper 90's, then started to drop, and eventually got into that 88 - 90 range where he finished up.

Not good.

I think as a GM, you want Gregg getting saves and Marmol on fireman duty. This, I think, will help Gregg to reach Type A status and raise his market value (which will keep him from accepting Arbitration offers). Also, it will lower Marmol's winnings in arbitration and thus keep his cost down. I also think it will maximize Marmol's value because the manager will mostly use him in situations where the team has the most to lose--runners on base, or best hitters coming up.

As a manager, I think you probably follow conventional wisdom and use your most dominant reliever as your closer. Marmol is clearly the most dominant pitcher in the bullpen.

Marmol will be the closer.