Quote:
Originally Posted by Pwn_Master
Getting rid of Lowe was obv great for us, but agree it is a good price for Indians too. His peripherals were good, and seems to be a worthy gamble to hope he can be a slightly below averagish innings eater for a year. We just have better, cheaper options is all.
Gonzalez will be 35 and coming off a pretty bad offensive year. Maybe we have to give him $3 million but think that is about it. If we he leaves for whatever reason, think we plan on having Pastornicky be the guy and just resign Jack Wilson for cheap as insurance/back-up.
Can't see Moylan coming back, just not a good cost/benefit option given the risk and our other options for his spot.
Haven't looked at it closely, but with Prado being able to slid into the 2B/3B positions, is it a big deal to carry 5 OFs?
The problem right now is that if you have Ross, Hinske, Diaz on bench then you have two spots left and we need someone that can play CF and someone that can play SS. There are a handful of guys in MLB that can play both SS and CF at a decent enough level to be the backup for both positions. Problem is we probably won't get any one of them. So, you lose Brooks (not that a big of a deal) and have to add a backup SS and backup CF. Let's say we do it internally and go with Diory and Constanza. You end up with a bench of Ross, Hinske, Diaz, Diory, Constanza. I think I'd rather have Brooks over Diaz considering the cost in that scenario.
If we want to upgrade and sign a corner OFer who also can't play CF then Diaz really does have to go. Prado slides into a super utility role and you have a bench of Ross, Hinske, Prado, Diory, Constanza.
If you can somehow manage to get a Beltran type (a guy you'd start at a corner OF position but can easily get 10-15 starts a year in CF), then you can go with whoever you want in that last bench spot (Brooks, Diaz, etc). You'd have a bench of Ross, Hinske, Prado, Diory, whoever you want.
I think a decent possibility would be to package together O'Flaherty and Diaz and see what you can get in return with the main point of the move being to get Diaz's $2m off your books and clearing O'Flaherty's salary. That kind of deal could save you $3-4m depending on what O'Flaherty gets in arbitration, and I think you could get a decent prospect or two as O'Flaherty's value is probably peaking at the moment (especially if a team wants to make him their closer). Medlen and Vizcaino could takeover the 7th inning with Meds as the guy you'd bring is vs tough lefties (he has a reverse platoon split b/c of his nasty changeup).
You do that and you might have $12-13m to use to get any corner OFer available (even Beltran I believe).