Baseball Flotsam and Jetsam

I'm hoping that thinking about baseball will help warm me up during this blizzard.

The Padres acquired Jim Edmonds from the Cardinals in exchange for 3rd base prospect David Freese. On its surface this looks like a win-win deal for both teams. The Padres get a veteran bat and an excellent glove in center. The Cardinals rid themselves of a mistake of a contract and get a prospect in return. However, there are questions to this deal. Edmonds is 37-years old and is injury prone these past few years. He's also coming off a season where he played just 117 games and managed a paltry .728 OPS. Edmonds could be cooked. Freese is a 24-year old prospect who was still playing Single A ball. That could be a warning sign (like a high school senior still playing with the JV football team). The big question of course is what the Cardinals do now for a centerfielder... The Dodgers have signed Japanese pitcher Hiroki Kuroda to a three-year, $35.2 million contract. Who knows how good Kuroda will be for the Dodgers but it is clear that the Dodgers have a pretty deep starting rotation with Brad Penny, Derek Lowe, Chad Billingsley, Kuroda and maybe Jason Schmidt returning from injury. Everyone in the NL West seems to be making moves except the Giants. I probably wouldn't be happy if I was a San Francisco fan and my expectations for them would be to own last place next season... The Diamondbacks have acquired Dan Haren from the A's. To me this looks like the classic "five nickels for a quarter" deal and those deals hardly ever work out for the team getting the nickels.... Brad Wilkerson is perhaps the best remaining free agent.