Well, this IS ENCOURAGING...!!!

[Alex]

"We tweaked the list a little bit, to borrow a John Hart-ism," Shapiro said. "We looked at a couple of creative alternatives that might involve some movement of players around the field a little bit."

-----------------------------------

That's right! Put Vic at third, Crisp and Blake at second...

Suddenly EVERY POSITION except for shortstop will be manned by a player with LESS than three years major league experience.

Players like Crisp, Bard, Martinez, Escobar, Ludwick, Hafner and Broussard MUST get regular playing time to evalute how well they can hit major league pitching.

Signing a vet to play second for the upcoming season simply slows down the rebuilding process. If we didn't have Lawton, I wouldn't worry so much about Vic getting Playing time.

But Bard started to hit at the end of the season and just trading Bard for a no name vet seems like a big mistake. If Bard stays, Vic MUST get playing time.

I wouldn't mind putting him at DH, but we have Lawton for that. Plus if Vic is DH'ing, he can't come in and replace Bard if Bard needed to come out of the game for any reason.

[The Crank]

Your ideas are still crazy Alex - you seem to not take defense into consideration at all.....

[Alex]

Crank, remember who the Florida Marlins had playing third base during the 97 World Series against the Tribe?

Bobby Bonilla. The guy had a bad hamstring and they still played him at third because of his bat. I like Vic's chances.

[The Crank]

Bonilla at least had experience playing third....

[Alex]

If a third baseman gets 500 chances in the course of a season during actual game experience, it seems to me a month of intense training can accomplish what would take TWO seasons to accomplish the conventional way.