Baseball Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous baseball thoughts and observations.

If Jason Schmidt is healthy enough to retake his position in the starting rotation then the Dodgers will actually have one starter too many. I would assume that Esteban Loaiza would be the odd man out and I wouldn't be surprised if he was trade bait. More likely the Dodgers will keep Loaiza as insurance against injury (which would be the prudent move)... Omar Vizquel is going on 41-years old and his contract with the Giants runs through this year and next. I'll be interested to see what happens after 2009 and I wouldn't be surprised if Vizquel was brought back for one more season in 2010. Vizquel is just 402 hits away from 3,000 for his career which means he'll probably be about 100 away going into the 2010 season. You would think that with 11 Gold Gloves (and counting) that also having 3,000 hits should get Vizquel a first ballot entrance into the Hall of Fame... It will be interesting to see what happens with Andy Marte with the Indians. He was supposed to be the starting 3rd baseman by now but the Indians went out and signed Casey Blake to be the 2008 starter. The Indians also used their top draft pick this year on a 3rd baseman - Beau Mills. I'd guess that at this point in time that Coco Crisp would bring a bigger return in a trade than Andy Marte... The real logjam for the Dodgers is in the outfield. Andruw Jones will definitely start in center and Matt Kemp has to play. The third slot should place Juan Pierre in left. That leaves Andre Ethier out in the cold. Let me just say that I'm not a big fan of Juan Pierre and if I were a Dodger fan I'd rather see Ethier get the playing time. Of course for many Dodger fans the veteran player they would like see traded is Nomar Garciappara whose power numbers fell off a cliff last season (just 7 HR and a measly .371 slugging percentage). Dodger fans feel that Nomar is blocking the path for Andy LaRoche. Although with Joe Torre as manager I'd look for him to stick with Nomar and I'd also expect a little uptick in Nomar's numbers this season - say maybe 15 HR... If I were an Indians fan I would be concerned about the starting rotation. On paper they look fine but both CC Sabathia and Paul Byrd will be pitching for new contracts this year and sometimes that pressure gets to a pitcher (see Derek Lowe in 2004). Also Fausto Carmona may have been overused last season and often young players have a difficult time the year after they have been overused. Not saying there will be a problem with any of these three starters but I am saying there are reasons for concern... If I were to predict anything about the 2008 Indians it would be that I would not be surprised if the Indians made a trade deadline deal for a corner outfielder this year.