Successful offseason

I would say that so far we have had a very successful offseason. We have signed one of the top free agent relievers in Joaquin Benoit and we have signed the top catcher and one of the bigger bats available in Victor Martinez. He not not only is a big bat, but he covers out backup catcher, first baseman and primary DH for the next 4 years. I know he is not the most popular choice with every but he will do the main job we need him to -- protect Miguel Cabrera. He will make our lineup all the way around much better. So we can now take a large sigh of relief. We just need to aim for a SP, mainly, and a corner OF, anything else would be a bonus. I really don't see Dombrowski taking it easy though.

We've gone through ad nausem the available SP in free agency and we all can all continue to name the pitcher we'd choose to sign. Same can be said with the starting OFs Werth, Crawford and Maggs. They have got to be the most talked about names on the BYB blog. I would like to take some time to look at of the other possibilities via trades. We have mentioned a limited  amount of names (Greinke, Garza and Gonzalez are a few of the more used names), but they are not the only ones out there. What I want to look at is possible trades that will take care of multiple holes on the team. Some may be blockbuster, some may not be.

The biggest issue with us getting one of the top names available would be the lack of blue-chip prospects. This by no means will make it impossible to make any trades, but it will make it quite a bit more difficult. We have quite a few RP that we can trade away, some OF that have potential (Wells, Boesch), some younger SP with high upside (Turner, Oliver) and even some utility type players (Raburn, Kelly). All of these players COULD be involved IF anything were to happen. 

So the first set of players I would like to look at is B.J. Upton and almost any starting pitcher for Tampa. The Rays have as many quality SP as we do 4th OF. Matt Garza, Wade Davis, Jeff Niemann, James Shields, Andy Sonnastine, Jeremy Hellickson and David Price are their possible starting pitchers on their 40-man roster alone. They can afford to give up one. I think that the pitcher we would have the best shot at would be Shields or Garza, and I wouldn't mind a trade for either one at all. They are both still fairly young are both getting or are in their prime. The reason we'd be more likely to get them over the others? Salary. Shields is due $6.25MM over the next two years, including $4.25MM this year and Garza is in his 2nd year of arbitration after making $3.35MM last year. Upton is also due up for his second year of arbitration. He made $3MM and I don't see that raising too much after last year. It has been said and known that the Rays will want to cut back their payroll. They will have $28MM off the books between Pena, Crawford and Soriano (that will drop them down to roughly $44MM this year). I do not know how low they plan on having their payroll, but this is still something we could consider. 

Upton would be an excellent pick up. We could put him in either corner outfield spot and he would be an excellent compliment to Austin Jackson at the top of the order. He has shown glimpses of power and hitting for average, we know he has speed and best of all he owns an 18.6 UZR in the OF with a decent arm. He owns a 14.0 WAR in 6 seasons in the big leagues. He'd be an excellent pickup in my eyes Stats wise, I really like either pitcher, but I think our chances are more likely to get Shields.  He has a career 4.03 FIP and 3.85 xFIP, has a 16.6 WAR and best of all, he averages about 6 1/3 innings per game played in his career. He eats innings and we could really use that - especially in the last end of the season. Best of all? Upton is in the dog house after his poor year and Shields can be easily replaced.

The Rays bullpen is very short on players and we would probably need to have a package that focused on a bigger RP. They could also possibly need a 1B, which we could add Strieby to the package. I would say this is the more likely deal to happen.

The next team we should take a look at is Cincinnati Reds. They too have an overload of SP. Their biggest issue is so many of them are so young, it makes it harder to pick one to trade for. The obvious SP would be Arroyo and Cueto, Bailey and Volquez would probably be a bit pricey (if at all available) so I want to lean more towards Mike Leake. His FIP was 4.68 and xFIP 4.31 and he owns a 1.1 WAR in his one and only season. I think he has a very bright future and would be the second easiest (behind Arroyo) pitcher to pry away. He averages about 5 2/3 innings a game, but I think that could improve. The hitter we could look at is Drew Stubbs. He is very similar to Upton, has speed and power and has shown he can hit for average and owns a 6.2 UZR in his one year in the big leagues. He will be pricer than Upton simply because of his age and upside, but he might be worth it. Not too sure what we could give up to them. They could also use a little bullpen help and maybe a utility player to cover multiple positions.
There are other teams we could also aim for, but to be honest I'm not quite as big on them. We could look to Seattle and get Figgins to play 2nd and get Vargas as our 3rd starter. There is also Houston where Bretty Myers or Wandy Rodriguez could be had with Carlos Lee. We've heard about Carlos Beltran being available and we may be able to snag R.A. Dickey, John Maine or Mike Pelfrey. But like I said, none of these are deals that I'd be completely excited about. I wouldn't complain, but I wouldn't be excited.

If we were to make any of these trades, this would still open the possibility of getting Magglio back in the Old English D, get a quality pitcher and a quick, top of the lineup hitter. Pretty sure none of this will happen but it's the offseason and that's our time to dream, right?