Let the Bidding for Lowell and Cabrera Begin

A-Rod Has agreed to a 10 year $275 million deal according to various media outlets. The fact that the best free agent and best third baseman has signed a deal greatly increases the bargaining position for the Mike Lowell and Florida Marlins in terms of their desire to trade Miguel Cabrera.

Mike Lowell had a career year last year with the Red Sox posting career highs in hits, batting average, RBI, and OBP. Hitting 21 home runs, Lowell is clearly the best free agent third baseman out there now that A-Rod is gone. Personally, I do not feel that he is not going to be worth the money that he will get. He's already 34 years old and not he's going to be demanding a 4-5 year deal with at least $12 million a year. Furthermore, there is a rumor out there that the Yankees have a deal out to Lowell for 4 years, $55-$60 million. With the Red Sox already having a deal on the table to him as well, it seems that Lowell will be staying on the East Coast unless a West Coast Team who needs a Third Baseball, like the Dodgers and Angels, decides to grossly overpay for him. With the current situation, I feel that the Dodgers will not get into the bidding war for him even though that only leaves one option in Cabrera if the Dodgers want to improve in the third base position.

With the situation for third basemen go, it seems like any team that tries to trade for Cabrera has a give up the holy grail of prospects. I no longer think the Marlins will accept the package I proposed in the last post for Cabrera and Uggla. Presently, I think the best course the Dodgers could do is to stay put and wait for the prospects. I would actually be kind of shocked to see the Dodgers now trading for Miguel Cabrera. Unless, Colletti can somehow magically pull off a trade with in which the Dodgers get Cabrera and Uggle with the package in the previous post, then I don't want to trade for him. I think the angels will land Cabrera and that might propel them into a legitimate World Series Contender with him and Vlad back to back in the batting order. Next year, I see the Dodgers platooning Andy LaRoach and Nomar at 3rd and I think that will lay the way for LaRoach to take over 3rd base full time for the 2009 season. Even if the Dodgers do nothing more this off season, the club is still improved with the addition of Torre and his staff and the maturation of the Rookies on the team. Personally, I would like to see how Loney and kemp comes back next year and perform with the way they finished their seasons.

One trade scenario I would like the Dodgers to explore is a trade for Kazmir. The Devil Rays did declare that theywill listen to offers for Kazmir. How closely, I don't know but I think if the Dodgers can get him with a package centered including Kershaw, Hu, and Kemp (which i think is highly unlikely), then they should definitely do it. You could argue that Kershaw has so much more potential upside than Kazmir but Kazmir is a prove ace. Between now and the day Kershaw makes him Dodgers debut, he could just blow out his elbow and require surgery (knock on wood), as in the case of Greg Miller. With Kazmir anchoring the rotation, the Dodgers will boast a rotation of Kazmir, Penny, Lowe, Billingsley, Schmidtz/Loaiza. If Schmidtz can recover to be at least a decent number 4 form then the Dodgers will definitely have the best pitching staff in the National League if not all of baseball. Kazmir is also under contract for three more years which makes him worth so much more than a one year rental. Furthermore, by trading Kemp, the Dodgers can add a power hitting center fielder without creating a logjam in the outfield. If they can sign either Hunter or Jones, then the Dodgers would solve their power problem in the lineup. With Hunter, they will also solve their veteran leadership problem.

As I said earlier, I do not expect a Kazmir trade to go through but if it does happen without the Dodgers only needing to give up one out of the Loney/Billingsley/ Martin/ Kemp group, then I would definitely jump on that trade. Aside from that happening, currently I do not think the Dodgers need to do much in this off season except to re-sign Wolf back on a one year incentive based deal. Like a famous saying, doing less is more.