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This season sucks so bad let's talk about lineups for next year.
Right now I see:
1 - Omar
2 - 3B ? Free Agent or result of trading Colon
3 - Lawton
4 - 1B, maybe Thome, maybe not
5 - Burks
6 - Escobar (hopefully)
7 - Ricky G (un-tradeable in a diminishing market)
8 - Bradley
9 - Diaz
Rotation
1 - Sabathia
2 - Baez
3 - Drese
4 - Result of Colon Trade
5 - Traber ? Wright ?
Based on the following:
- Colon has to be traded before the deadline. Any contender bar the Yankees would be desperate for him. Need major hitting and pitching prospects.
- Escobar has to be given a chance. He may not make it until mid season though. His loss in the spring was huge. That's the reason we are seeing so much Brady.
- Cordero, Nagy, Finley, Fryman, Wright is nearly $30m of savings. But built in increases for Omar, CC, Diaz, Baez might cost $5-10m. With budget cuts due to low attendance probably only 1 FA can be signed.
- The FA market could be VERY soft. Hicks has said he'll cut the Rangers to $60m next year. And there MAY be luxury tax to curb the biggest spenders.
- Ricky G is untradeable. If he was a FA in 2003 he would get a minor league contract only.
So - who are the players we should seek via trades and FA ?
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I included Wright as a possible #5 because he may be persuaded to stay with the Indians for low money as they have paid him $10m to rehabilitate.
I still think he'll head back to California though. Probably the Angels.
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OK, let's go with "what-ifs" then.
Who is on the market right now to be traded, we have to remember that we are not going to be doing much on the FA market. I assume we are looking for position players.
So that would pretty much mean Rolen, so would anyone here trade Colon and Branyan for Rolen and one of their minor league position players...maybe the guy Byrd. I think that would be an intriguing trade because Colon has more value then ROlen since he has one more year on his contract, and Byrd has more value then Branyan. That seems to be a legit trade. Of course, we would have to make sure we can resign Rolen, and the question there is, what are we going to sign him for? The 10-12 million a year we were going to sign Thome for? So then we let THome leave as a FA if he is not willing to take 7-8 million a year again. We trade Finley this year in order to get some A-AA prospects. No matter how much we seem to knock Finley, he has been doing pretty good this year, always that one inning trouble, but his ERA is decent and he works into the 6th every time out it seems. SO I would have to say he is worth something to a contender down the stretch, say the BoSox if they are looking for a 4-5 guy, or the Mariners.
Let's say we can pull the Rolen/Byrd for Colon/Branyan. Resign Thome as well. For 2003 the lineup would look like:
Lawton
Vizquel
Rolen
Burks
Thome
Escobar
Bradley
Guttierez
Diaz
Bench:
McDonald
Cabrera
Bard or Perez
Magruder
Snyder
Rotation:
CC
Baez
Drese
Stanford
Drew
Bullpen:
Westbrook
Wickman
Shuey
Wohlers
Riske
Riggan
Rincon
or whoever shows up during spring training.
Another thought, the Mariners need another lefty in the bullpen...Rincon going to be traded?
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I believe this team is in a correctable pattern mode.
It just depends if Eddie Murray is angling for Charlie's job or not.
Hopefully Eddie will get the hitters to adjust to situational hitting so we can save the season.
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Thanks for the bump Alex. Maybe I wasn't that far off.
The hole at 3rd base and the Thome free agency were the big imponderables then and they still are.
My only modification is that maybe Escobar should get a year at AAA. Tribe aren't contending and he could do without the pressure and possible negative atmosphere.
Right now I would go.
Lawton
Omar
Burks
Thome
Garcia
3B ? Ricky G or Snyder ?
Bradley
Broussard
Diaz / Bard
