Post Trade: Where Do the Dodgers Go From Here?

Hopefully, Manny drives in enough runs to turn a few of more of the usual low scoring games into wins, at least more wins than the diamondbacks end up with. When will those guys lose? Hopefully tonight, because last night's loss was pretty tough. So, with that said, it's onto some notes I scrawled down position by position before the whole trade for Manny thing happened.
Catcher
Russell Martin is a mural on the left field side of dodger stadium. He'll be here a while. As for his backup, I'd prefer either Dave Ross or Gregg Zaun. If neither of those guys are on board with only playing 50 games or so, then it really doesn't matter to me as long as it's not paying the cheater that can't throw the ball back to the pitcher, Gary Bennett, any more money he doesn't deserve. That was kinda harsh, but it's deserved. Last season I let his signing slide with a what could go wrong attitude. Well, besides not hitting, which is kind of expected from a back up catcher, his inability to throw the ball adequately back to the pitcher due to a mental block a la Steve Sax botching throws to first back in the '80's. Another loser that will be a free agent is Paulie LoDuca He should remain a free agent if all the teams are smart. Fat chance. Wouldn't mind a young backup to Martin if the prospect was good defensively--oh wait we had one and we traded him for Casey Blake.

First Base
Another pretty entrenched position with James Loney solidly manning the position. They are going to need to let Sweeney walk and get a new backup/pinch hitter. I would most like re-signing Nomar back to first as Loney's backup and also hand him a super utility/pinch hitting role. Nomar just started a family. Mia Hamm's job is in SoCal. He knows he can't stay healthy. I'm sure he could man up enough and sign a contract for 1 year, around $2 million with PA incentives.
They could switch old first baseman and try out Tony Clark. The plus on him is he is a switch hitter. The minuses are he's old and may just prefer to go back to Arizona. I would be o.k. with this but would prefer Nomar, because the role isn't all that big and I just plain like the idea of keeping Nomar around, because he can't hurt the dodgers in that role if he's willing to accept it.

Second Base
Kent retires, now what? The dodgers have to be operating under the assumption that this is Jeff Kent's last season. They can maybe work out an informal deal where they pay him some amount to offer him arbitration with the understanding he will decline it, so should he pull a Favre, he agrees to sign somewhere else entitling the dodgers to some draft picks. Kent pretty much should qualify as an A type free agent so that would be neat. But there's not a very good chance that Kent would pull a Favre. Dodgers have a few options. If they want to go in house for a replacement, they have a choice of Tony Abreu, who is currently recovering from an abdominal hernia surgery, or Delwyn Young, who is probably overmatched defensively to play there regularly. I like Abreu, but it's been so long since he's played that it's hard to really know what you'll get from him to just hand him the starting second baseman job after all of his injuries. It's warming up to be another LaRoche career path out of L.A for Abreu, add to that one more strike against him for having Boras as his agent. So we'll see.

There is one free agent Vin Scully would be delighted with and that's Orlando Hudson. This may be a free agent the dodgers invest in if they fail in the CC Sabathia sweepstakes. He's both old school and Sabermetric friendly. He hits exceptionally well in dodger stadium and in Arizona, a major plus. The bad news is his bat doesn't perform well at Coors, Petco, or AT&T. I'd guess his contract would be pretty pricey, so that's kind of a minus, but O-dog is the star type of player that you do show the money to. He'll kinda be Rafael Furcal-light.

If the dodgers don't like either of these they can go for veteran insurance in the form of maybe Mark Grudzielanek, but probably more realistically, Jose Valentin and hope one of the in house options supplants him in a month or two.

Shortstop
Furcal is waving buh-bye to the dodgers, what now? The weirdo move I like the best is taking a big gamble and doubling down now, back injury and all, by negotiating a contract extension with him and hoping he forgoes his free agency to re-up with L.A. It's a huge shot in the dark but might actually work. Seems to hair brained, though so I'll lay out the other options. Plan B is in house option Chin Lung-Hu. He's tearing up Las Vegas again after eye surgery, so maybe the power we saw late last season on the big club is for real. I'd feel less unsure of handing him shortstop out of spring training than handing Abreu second base because the dodgers have been managing with almost zilch offensive production from shortstop for a while now, at least you know Hu would be a defensive upgrade. If for whatever reason there's no faith in Hu, you can try being aggressive with Ivan DeJesus Jr. With him his plate discipline may make the jump to the major leagues doable. He's also solid defensively. Thank goodness the Jack Wilson trade didn't happen. The free agent pickings are too expensive and will want too many years to sign as stopgaps. The dodgers really shouldn't want to commit to Rentaria or Orlando Cabrera. After that there's a huge dropoff in the free agent talent down to Cesar Izturis who probably would sign for one season or so on the cheap, but he doesn't make sense for the dodgers because the in-house options already trump him offensively.

Third Base
Will third base remain a black hole? A position where players go to get injured, to suck, or both? The manager seems to really like Blake DeWitt as evidenced by his decision to keep playing DeWitt after the league had caught onto him and despite DeWitt's failure to make counter-adjustments. I'm o.k. with them going back to him as the heir apparent at the position, mainly because there's nobody better to go after. Chipper Jones is the only free agent at third that kicks butt, but he's probably going to either return to the braves or retire. I'm sorry but I can't really get excited bout Joe Crede or Wes Helms. Casey Blake makes no sense to commit to because he'll want length and he's already 35. I don't care that he's a late bloomer he's still past his prime and could drop off a cliff in terms of production. The black hole at third seriously makes me wish we could just move Martin there and try to bring up prospect Lucas May. The only other option is to trade for a third baseman and we all know how fruitful that has been this season before the arrival of Blake. I'm not going to consider Nomar for a starting third base job. He's just been too brittle to consider as a starter anywhere. I think he knows it too now.

Outfield
Right now the dodgers still have commitments to Juan Pierre and Andruw Jones beyond the '08 season. The dodgers have control over outfielders Ethier, Kemp, and Delwyn Young. I don't necessarily expect anything to give, but the dodgers definitely would get bonus points in my mental scorebook if they were to be able to get another team to take either of them, preferably Jones. Might happen when they put him on waivers. Some contender might think that bat may come alive like it pretended to when Jones made the last out last night. I think I was just surprised so much he made solid contact with a pitch that I assumed he hit the dang thing out the park for about a half a second. Anyways, if the dodgers do manage to get rid of an outfielder, there are some good close to prime outfielders to offer money to. I'd want to take a chance on Baldelli, but I should probably read up more on the complications of having a mitochondrial dna disorder before I get so gung-ho on offering the guy a multiyear contract. If the dodgers like the results of the Manny trade and want to try it for 4 years or so they might want to try signing Adam Dunn to play left field. Beyond that the only other person halfway interesting would be Wily Mo Pena. He's young. He can kinda hit. His fielding sucks. He's a tad crazy. If the dodgers want another Bradley-ish reclamation project they could take a chance on Pena. I don't think he's worth it because there's not enough power there to make up for the bad defense. I'm also tired of bat-crap-crazy players that get too much media attention. Problem is the dodgers don't have outfield prospect to even try to hand an outfield spot to. My guess is left field goes to Juan Pierre and Delwyn Young next year unless they manage to upgrade through trade. Unlike third base, there are actually decent, attainable outfielders that could be obtained with surplus pitching prospects the dodgers just seem to crap out of their system.

Pitching
First off I want to state that I would have never guessed that Carl Pavano was only 33 years old. He just seems so 37-38'ish. He looks like a darn coach in the dugout. Signing free agent to me is dangerous no matter how he sure the thing is you think you're signing. I guess my fear/distaste of free agent starting pitchers stems from the Kevin Brown signing. The dodgers have lots and lots of pitching, but you know how that goes. A team can go from having 7 starters to having 3 in a matter of a couple of weeks. Despite my fear and distaste of free agent pitching you just cannot ignore the big, double-C as an in-prime superstar talent to bolster a rotation that expects to trot out Billingsley, Kuroda, Kershaw, and Penny (could be traded). Penny is almost definitely gone if the dodgers sign Sabathia. He definitely would make the medicine of Andruw Jones or Juan Pierre go down in a trade for a third baseman or outfield upgrade because he's in his prime and is paid borderline dirt cheap. The next biggest contract probably goes to Ben Sheets. He's one I'd like the dodgers to avoid as I'm afraid he'll pull a Dreifort and go down with a career ending injury. Oliver Perez is a risky investment because of his inconsistency, but a risk worth taking because the talent is there should the dodgers lose out on CC. I wouldn't be mad totally mad at another deal with Randy Wolf although I'd feel it was a bit too much blocking of the dodgers young arms just to have a proven 5'th starter. Beyond those four guys there's no free agent starters I want the dodgers to be interested in given all the good, young arms that are about to matriculate. James McDonald is the guy I can't wait to see most. Any guy that goes from being a hitter to a pitcher is just such a beat-the-odds feat that I want him to be the yang to Rick Ankiel's ying. Stults is in his prime, and throws left, so he well could make the club as a 5'th starter (or traded). Even assuming the dodgers miss out on every free agent pitcher, the dodgers young arms (thanks in part to Logan White's ability to draft arms) should be able to keep the staff and pen strong into the beginning of next decade.
As far as the bullpen. I have a soft spot for Joe Beimel...not that crazy fan that got arrested in Cincinatti stalking-type of soft spot for Beimel. He's just a guy I like because he went from being a fringe lefty to almost an elite reliever capable of 70 appearances and still getting the job done. He's managed to be an above average reliever who's been used heavily going on three years now. That amount of consistency after such mediocrity just begs to be re-signed. Hopefully he doesn't harbor any ill feelings over getting beaten in arbitration with his cut hand being thrown back up in his face. If the organization is more comfortable in keeping Broxton on the job track of becoming the career holds leader instead of a closer, and there is money burning in their pockets from not signing any free agents, maybe they will sign K-Rod. Otherwise, there's no use in signing any relievers given the amount of young arms the dodgers have. Wade...Troncoso...Brazoban...Broxton...maybe Torre demands the dodgers sign Proctor so that he can finish off the job of making his arm fall off. O.K. I'm all out of material.