40 Man Roster Analysis

Players that should stay with the big club, definitely
Russell Martin
Brad Penny
James Loney
Matt Kemp
Takashi Saito
Jonathan Broxton
Chad Billingsley

That's a catcher, first baseman, right/center fielder, two starting pitchers, a closer and a setup man.

Players that I would like to leave via Free Agency
Mark Hendrickson
Roberto Hernandez
David Wells
Randy Wolf
Mike Lieberthal
Shea Hillenbrand
Ramon Martinez
Olmedo Saenz
Mark Sweeney
Luis Gonzalez

Hendrickson's non-tender would be the hardest. The rest of these guys will probably leave as free agents or retire, so not a problem.

Players I really want to trade
Juan Pierre
Jeff Kent

Provided Kent doesn't retire, he could be a useful DH to some team. Provided Boston doesn't pick up A-Rod, they could theoretically let Lowell go, move Youkilis to third and play Kent at first. The difficulty of trading Juan Pierre is that he would have to be traded for someone else who is a real salary burden, sort of a Jeff Suppan type, but more ridiculous. This would be someone who would give Dusty Baker a managerial job for it to happen. Otherwise, Pierre may just have to be admitted a failure by LA and displaced, benched and ultimately released. Trading him to SF would be more disrespectful than releasing him probably.

Players we are stuck with
Esteban Loaiza
Nomar Garciapara

Provided we trade Kent, Nomar could probably play better defense at 2b, and he should be able to bounce back to at least an .800 OPS. A 2B with an .800 OPS is alright by me. Loaiza will probably be Tomko'ed. What was Billy Beane thinking?

Players that would be a good idea to think about trading
Rafael Furcal
Derek Lowe
Hong-Chi Kuo
Eric Stults

Kuo is a good pitcher, but he's such an injury risk. He could be valuable for teams that like the Mark Prior types. Did I mention he's a lefty?

Derek Lowe is in the last year of his contract and looks like he wants out. That said,
he's an incredibly valuable starting pitcher, and he could be huge for getting some sort of significant player in a trade, or helping us dump Juan Pierre and not pay his salary. That may become a concern if we pay A-Rod $35,000,000 per year.

Eric Stults is a potentially useful fourth or fifth starter, and he's . . . left-handed. But without Kuo's injury history.

Furcal had a bad offensive year which he's certain to rebound from, and even then, he was 2nd in baseball in RF only to Tulo, and the Dodgers have a much higher K/9 than the Rockies. This means Furcal is an awesome defensive SS who can hit the ball too if he's healthy. If the BoSox want to take a chance on his being healthy, more power to them.

Players that could easily be Dodgers next year but could be traded
Andre Ethier
Andy LaRoche
Tony Abreu
Chin-Lung Hu
Joe Beimel
Eric Hull
John Meloan
Scott Proctor
Jason Repko
Delwyn Young

Of this group, I'll say LaRoche's injury makes me really hate the Betemit trade. Abreu and Hu should be bench players to stick around for when Nomar and LaRoche get hurt. Then A-Rod plays third and you have a good youthful combo up the middle that can hit a little. Ethier and Beimel are both good and likely to stick around, Young and Repko look like outfield bench players, though Young or Repko should start taking some PT from Pierre.

Players that could spend all next year on the DL
Jason Schmidt
Yhency Brazoban

Brazoban is $55 million away from being Darren Dreifort, while Schmidt is only $8 million away.

Players that might be let go but are useful
Chun-Hui Tsao
Rudy Seanez

Seanez is an old dude and who knows what he does. Tsao was useful but injury prone, and management might consider him fungible, which would be unfortunate.


Players likely to start in the Minors
DJ Houlton
Mike Megrew
Greg Miller

Control problems and familiarity issues, or whatever.