Lots of scariness as the Winter meeting start.
The most likely free agent pitchers to come here are Byung-Hyun Kim and Brett Tomko. No excitement there. Tomko is bigtime flyball pitcher, if I remember right, and that’s death in our ballpark. Kim doesn’t really bother me, although he’s no savior. The scary part with him is that’s about the best we seem to be able to do.
Granted, with a projected rotation of Chris Young & Kameron Loe, we obviously need help. But Tomko & Kim? Bleargh. For some stupid reason, I honestly thought Paul Byrd would come here. I figured that was gonna be our big free agent signing.
I’d love to see Oliver Perez turn up here from Pittsburgh. But the Pirates are the third team I follow (besides the Phillies & Rangers). But I’d be absolutely stunned if the Pirates give up Perez, no matter who they get back.
More scariness would be trading for Adam Eaton of the Padres. Another fly ball guy. He probably benefitted from being in the big park they’re in. Likely wouldn’t translate well here. The rumour I read was Eaton for Adrian Gonzalez AND Gerald Laird. Way too high.
I obviously like the story that’s being talked about where we get Barry Zito, but I’d be surprised if Oakland would want to trade him within the division. He’s too big of a player for that, IMO. Don’t know what they’d want for him, but if he was to go inside the AL West, it’d be a lot, I’m sure. Plus Zito can be a free agent after the 2006 season, so I’m sure we’d want to extend him if we made the trade. And I don’t know if ZIto would want to do that. Maybe we can give him the $50k we didn’t give him when we drafted him originally as an extra bonus. :)
Kerry Wood, Todd Walker, cash & prospects for Kevin Mench & Alfonso Soriano. Do we really need Todd Walker? I’d probably still make that deal minus Walker. Walker has a team option for 06 for $2.5 Million, so one year might not be all that bad.
Another Mench rumour has him going to the BLue Jays straight up for Miguel Batista. I’ll do that one.
Don’t want Juan Pierre. We tried that idea a few years back with Tom Goodwin, Darryl Hamilton, & Damon Buford. Didn’t work offensively (although I really liked Hamilton’s defense).
I also don’t know what to think about the Manny Ramirez rumours.
Oh, and Hugh Hefner should give Anna Benson the million she wants. That’d be a great free agent signing.