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?