Only 9 More Days of Andruw Jones! Start the Countdown!

I hesitated about posting again about Andruw even though a few more things were made clear about that whole contract restructuring thing because I wanted everything to be made clear before going on and on speculating on the various scenarios regarding a player I'd rather not think that much about.   So now we know the deadline bartered for in the restructuring requires the dodgers to trade or release him by the 15'th and that his 22.1 million bucks has been spread over 6 years.  According to Cot's, he gets no interest on the deferred money.  That's about 3.7 mil/year?  I'm surprised about the no interest part.  Now onto sox-related faire.

Puck is none too happy the sox were linked to Saito in the press.  She was unhappy when the dodgers didn't even offer Beimel arbitration, also.  Proctor?  She's glad he's gone.  She understands the concept of not paying relievers lots of money because of the uncertainty in them being able to reproduce their production, and about the dodgers needing to make room for their younger pitchers, but she doesn't care.  Since the sox are interested in Saito, I'll link and  blab a bit about his arm.  Apparently he suffered a torn ligament in his elbow last season and instead of having Tommy John surgery he had stem cells injected into it, rested two months, and had back at it (it's only a flesh wound!) near the end of the season with mixed results.  So yeah, his elbow is a mess and he's 38.  I can understand not gambling 2-3 million all guaranteed for that.  If it weren't the sox interested in him, I'm sure the whole thing about his elbow would be in the second sentence, but huge deference is given to the red sox organization's ability to judge talent and work with injuries.  If that sounded bitter, it was lol.  I really hope they kind of work something out with him.  Speaking of old closers, Trevor is being all buddy-buddy with the brewers, and with Moorad et al buying the padres, there's talk of him re-signing with San Diego.

Now back to Andruw.  Despite my happiness that Andruw will be gone soon, and the fact that it seems the dodgers' GM has seemed to have gotten better at his job, I can't help but think this move comes back to haunt them deep in a pennant race near the deadline in the next 3 seasons or so.  It would be the dodgers luck that Andruw's 3.7 million (guesstimating based on Cot's and what I've read) would be the cash that prevents the dodgers from adding payroll while in a pennant race.  They may still make the move, but it will be Casey Blake style (giving away good prospects with even better names like Carlos Santana just to get the other side to pay salary).  One of those moves will be what really irks me 3-4 years or so removed from the trade when said prospect is a budding star or phenom for another team.  Santana specifically may make me want to spit by the end of the '09 season.