Ludwick is just about the only righthanded power worth his weight in the organization. He isn't tradebait, at least not now.

Also, why would you keep Broussard over Hafner as a DH? Broussard is the better defender. I can't see either of them in the outfield, not with our outfield depth and their lack of speed.

First of all, I?d like to echo Bernal?s statement that Shapiro was able to not only find a taker for Gutierrez but one who was willing to pick up a non-negligible portion of his salary. With 2004 salary and 2005 buyout, Gutierrez is scheduled to make $4.75 M; the Plain Dealer reported that the Indians picked up $3.65 M while the Lake County News Herald reported $3.5 M. Either way, the Tribe gets out of $1+ M of commitment; also, I have seen that Wickman will have 80 % of his salary paid by insurance while he?s on the DL (one of the reasons the Tribe was looking at Urbina) so payroll wise the Indians should be about where they had budgeted ? of course, they don?t have the services of Bob Wickman for 3+ months, so it?s not all rosy. My hope (okay, my wish) is that Wick comes back in June, shows he?s healthy and can pitch effectively, and the Tribe is able to spin him off to a contender come July or August.

WRT the outfield, Escobar and Ludwick both bat righthanded, Broussard, Hafner, Gerut and Sizemore are lefties, and Bradley and Crisp are switchitters. FWIW, Lawton and most of the OF prospects in the minors (Aubrey, Jason Cooper, Brad Snyder, and Nathan Panther) bat lefthanded. While Wedge hasn?t exhibited an eagerness to embrace platooning, I have read some things this winter that made me think he was willing to consider the concept. I picture the OF/1B/DH situation like this for Opening Day 2005 (after Lawton is traded):

LF Gerut

Maybe the Cleveland papers aren't taking into account his buyout because according to the Daily News (homepage), the Mets are only responsible for only $600,000 of the 4.75 million owed to Gutierrez.

Robertson to the Tribe for Luke Scott and the right to retain Taveras. Scott might turn into Jason Lane lite. Taveras could pinch run right now, and knows what he's doing on base, but needs to figure how to steal first.

Zips looks about right for Jer-o-mee. It really doesn't like Lee, surprised at D'Amico and Durbin's projections. Robertson'll likely be the first man up from Buffalo is Stanford struggles.

I think future considerations is just a way of saying that the teams agree later on player OR cash, instead of "PTBNL" or "cash considerations".

Thump...thump...thump.

That's me doing my happy dance.

More seriously, who's the fifth OF? You need to have someone to backup CF, and I don't think they're going to have Jeff Duncan sit on the bench. I guess they can use McEwing there, he can hit poorly at lots of positions. Someone's making the roster now, I just have no idea who. I guess it's Raul Gonzalez if they can't think of anything more original.

Eric Valent, for now, appears to be the fifth outfielder (Cameron, Floyd, Garcia, Spencer).

I am so curious what Cardinal fans think of this trade. I mean, I'm pretty sure I know what they're going to think by June. But if they see him as an upgrade, that speaks volumes about their outfield problems.

Fun transaction day. Check this one out:

<i>Tampa Bay Devil Rays - Acquired infielder-outfielder Jason

Goodness. The hits keep coming:

<i>Seattle Mariners - Acquired infielder Jolbert Cabrera from

how much of the salary do the mets have to eat? this was a great salary dump if they don't have to pay more than a mil or two a year.

As long as Cedeno is used as a 4th OF, I have no problem with the trade. The issue here is that La Russa loves to take players like Marrero or Paquette and hand them 400 ABs a season, which we simply cannot afford to do with someone as inept as Roger.

The Mets are paying around 8 million of Roger's salary. I guess this is a no-risk deal for the Cardinals, so it might work for them. Roger is a nice guy, and i rooted hard for him, but after countless base-running blunders, horrific defense, and little production at the plate, i'm glad he's gone.

Jeremy- That was Bill Bavasi picking up Cabrera... that's all you need to know.

And those thoughts of McEwing as the backup CF are killing me. Parying for good health from Cameron.

Valent is going to be the backup CF. Well that is until Milton Bradley gets here (yes i know...Wishful thinking).

I wonder if he'll spin those prospects for Bradley; maybe with one of the outfielders he just got... I think Duchscherer and something from the A's would do it, but a salary would have to be included-- maybe Kotsay?

I wrote this about Valent in the blog last decemeber... before I'd seen how bad his year at AAA was in 2003. But anyway:

Yesterday the Mets tabbed outfielder Eric Valent in the Minor League section of the Rule V draft. I?m not writing about this because of my new found Metslust, I?m writing about it because Valent is another of the small group of players I?ve watched since he was drafted. Why?

A couple of days ago I talked about JD Drew. The Phillies drafted him, tried to sign him, failed to sign him, despite being told from the beginning he wouldn?t sign with them. So next year, as compensation, they got an extra pick at the end of the first round. Who did they draft? Eric Valent.

At the time Valent was seen to have a fair amount of potential, if not in the class of Pat Burrell who the Phillies took earlier that round.

Things worked out ok for Valent, to an extent. Here are his minor league stats:

Year Lg. Age Org. Avg G AB HR BB SO SLG

Well, the Cardinals had to have SOMEONE has the RH part of the platoon with Ray Lankford in LF, and if all the Cards had to give up is 2 non-prospect AAA level players plus pay Cedeno $500k, that's not too bad.

ugh. 9m? i mighta almost kept him.

Haaaaaaaaaaaaaalelujah!

It was nice to see the Cards fans boo Cedeno yesterday (at opening day, yeah, back at work today, boo) after his three attempted swings in his PH appearance. Perhaps we don't value speed over other skills as much anymore.

Erickson on the DL, Seo recalled.