The final installment of the Franquelis Osoria Watch

You might, albeit vaguely, remember we ran a feature called the Franquelis Osoria Watch here. It focus on the major league achievements of the Dodger reliever during his relatively short stint with the big club last season.

Franquelis split the 2006 season between the Las Vegas 51's (roughly 80% of his time) and the Los Angeles Dodgers (20% in April-May). His stats in LA were not particularly notable, which in large part decided about his demotion to Vegas. In Nevada he almost quadripled the number of his outings (44) while getting the ERA down to somewhat acceptable level (4.35).

Well, this is the final installment of the Osoria Watch, folks. The Dodgers thought they could slip him through waivers in order not to put him on the 40-man roster and it turned out the Pittsburgh Pirates had Osoria in their plans. They snatched him and will, most probably, use him next season as their core reliever.

Well, it's not like we suddenly depleted the farm with this departure, but I thought Franquelis would be able to see the light of day in SoCal again. Right now, I could only hope the Dodger batters hit the daylights out of him next time we play the Pirates at Chavez.

That's life, Fran. Good luck.

Thanks for the memories, Eric

It's official, Eric Gagne is no longer a Dodger. He signed a one year contract with the Texas Rangers worth 6 mln USD plus performance-based incentives.

Wow, no longer "Welcome to the jungle", when the bullpen door slams open.

And then again, when you consider how much time Gagne spent off the field while being on the Dodgers payroll in the last two years, you can't help but wonder why he turned down the apparent Colletti deal for 4 mln for a year... It's only (I know, in the baseball superstars' world), it's only two frigging million dollars, while Eric has been paid 10 mln for riding the pine at Chavez only this year!

Talk about home discount.

And no, I'm not putting this one on Boras. Gagne has his head straight and he sure knows which side his bread is buttered on, I just thought a notion of team loyalty wasn't as outworn with him as with any other free agent around these days.

Silly me.

Then again, good luck in Texas, Eric. And thanks for the memories. Just not the most recent ones.

Who will be the first to file?

Recognize this man?


Correct. It's Scott Boras. Agent of, amongst others, JD Drew.

Now: read this, will you?

I'm very curious of your judgment. Will any major league team file a motion to investigate tampering charges against the Red Sox and Boras? Let me know what you think.

Luis Gonzalez signing in perspective

Ned Colletti must have felt that the price for Manny Ramirez was way too high (and he was right) and kept the risk to minimum by signing Gonzalez to only one-year contract. The question is whether we needed a veteran LF in the first place? My understanding is that even though Luis is probably well over the hill, the Dodgers, suddenly without Drew and with injury-prone Garciaparra and Kent, might have been without a serious homerun-threat. So paying 7 mln for a year does not seem that bad, if that was Colletti's thinking.

It also means that Manny is now out of question.

In effect we do have a surplus of OFs with Gonzo, Pierre, Ethier, Repko, Kemp, Anderson, Werth and part-time Loney. At this point Kemp and probably Werth (when fully heallthy) start in Vegas (Jayson is a question mark anyway). Anderson is a PH/OF/IF-utility and the first four OFs rotate for a year.

Since we already have PH/INF-utilities in Saenz and Martinez, as well as Loney to play part-time 1B, what to do with Betemit, since he can no longer be a part of the package for a "Manny-type"? Will he bring a quality LHP reliever we seem to lack? What if we package Toby Hall with him? I would not like us to trade Betemit, but it seems he should bring more quality back than any combination of Martinez/Robles/Werth/Hendrickson/Tomko...

My first impression after the recent signings is that we now have excess of starting pitching, which is always good (especially if we could move Hendrickson and/or Tomko and keep Dessens as the long man/spot starter). On the other hand - we do have also excess in OF/INF department. Even if we assume that Kemp, Werth and Robles start in Vegas, there's more than 12 players on the roster fighting for those 12 spots...

What do you think the current situation will play itself out like?

Four new Dodgers

The current offseason has been good to the Dodgers. They managed to acquire key pieces of the starting rotation in Jason Schmidt (3 yrs for 47 mln) and Randy Wolf (1 yr at 8 mln with a club option). This bolsters the rotation which lost free agents Greg Maddux and Aaron Sele to the degree where the Dodgers can negotiate with other clubs from a position of seller strength.

As of now the group of potential starting pitchers consists of Schmidt, Wolf, Derek Lowe, Brad Penny, Chad Billingsley and Hong-Chih Kuo, with long relievers Brett Tomko and Mark Hendrickson also in the mix. It's interesting who the Dodgers will trade in order to get another key piece of the offense. As of now Brad Penny seems to be able to bring the most back.

The other two new Dodgers are CF Juan Pierre and LF Luis Gonzalez. I'm less excited about them as they seem to block the lineup places for many of the up-and-coming youngsters (Matt Kemp, James Loney, destined to play at least some OF next year, and Andre Ethier).

GM Ned Colletti has kept his cards close to his chest and declined to trade the future. I hope he continues to do that, even if it means the Dodgers are not to expect any more moves.

Thoughts on getting Manny

I'm really excited about a possibility of the Dodgers acquiring Manny. I really am.

If we could get Manny Ramirez from the Red Sox without losing anyone from the Broxton-Kuo-Billingsley-Loney group (I'm willing to part with either Ethier or Kemp, but not both), we would finally land a bona fide slugger who can both hit for power and not lead the league in strike outs (like Carlos Lee or Adam Dunn-types) ;).

An outfield of Ramirez-Pierre-Repko/Loney (with Kemp moving in into RF in 2008, when Loney takes over 1B and Nomar becomes a subersub) would have the right mix of speed and hitting ability. About the only disadvantage would be below average fielding in LF/CF.

Do you think the Red Sox (depleted and/or disillusioned in their starting pitching department) can settle for a Penny + Betemit + Ethier package? Can, as someone mentioned, a first round pick resulting from NOT offering Lugo arbitration (when he should turn around and sign with the Red Sox) be part of the "informal" package.

I am so much looking forward to how the whole thing plays out :).