Padres closer, Heath Bell, said earlier today that he’s open to a set up role this season if he’s traded to a contender according to Richerd Durret of ESPNDallas.com.

“If you’ve got a closer right now and you need me to be the eighth-inning guy, I’ll be the eighth-inning guy,” Bell said. “Secretly, I would probably tell the manager, ‘Look, I’m going to go out there and I’m going to show you I can beat the other guy.’ If the other guy is better than me, then we’ll have one heck of a bullpen.”

Earlier today, we learned that the Yankees, Rays, Rangers, Diamondbacks, Phillies, Cardinals and Angels are possible destinations for Bell, who doesn’t care which league he ends up in.

“I like the NL because I know everybody,” Bell said. “Then I look at the AL and they don’t really know me. I don’t think in the major leagues you trick anybody or you fool anybody because everybody kind of knows everybody. It’s going to be interesting. If I get traded to the AL, I’ve got a lot of homework to do, but they also have a lot of homework to do.”

Image by SD Dirk under the Creative Commons License.