There is No Such Thing As Wrinkle-Free Pants!

With all this delish weather we've been having as of late, I've noticed one very important thing. Wrinkle-free pants do not exist. Similarly, this time of year, wrinkle-free roster plans do not exist either. Sure, you can try and mix all kinds of chemicals together, and create some super-fabric that resists stains, wrinkles, and whatnot. But no matter how hard you try, there's still a ton of work to do to get those wrinkles out.

In the case of my previous semi-suggestion for the 2007 M's, I found a few wrinkles. The first glaring one was that I assumed 60 + 12.5 = 62.5. Yup. I lost $10 million of CHowArmLinStrong's money. That alone would be grounds for termination. Oops. Fortunately one of my advisers caught the error and I'm giving myself a mulligan for that one. I was about as tired as I am right now. The other two wrinkles, of course, were that Greg Maddux and Al Soriano were my two big signings. Obviously, for many reasons, neither of those things are very realistic.

So, here I am, with my Dice-Less Roster V. 2.0. I'll trust you can get the earlier figures on the guys that are on the team on my previous post. So, for time's sake, I'll omit them except in the changes that I'm making in this version. I'm also ignoring the spate of recent minor league free agent signings (Foppert, Ordonez, etc...) because I see them as spare parts for stashing in the minors. Here ya go:

1) Richie Sexson (1B)
2) Adrian Beltre (3B)
3) Ichiro Suzuki (CF)
4) Jarrod Washburn (SP)
5) Kenji Johjima (C)
6) Raul Ibanez (DH/LF)
7) Willie Bloomquist (UTIL)
8) Yuniesky Betancourt (SS)
9) Jose Lopez (2B)

XX) DFA/Trade Julio Mateo & pay contract

Total so far: $60 million.

10) Felix Hernandez
11) George Sherrill
12) Cha Baek
13) Chris Snelling
14) Mike Morse

New total: $62 million (sans a hundred K or so)

15) JJ Putz (Arbitration buyout - $3 million in 2007, $3.5 million in 2008 and $4.5 million in 2009.)

That brings us up to $65 million.

To pad the 'pen and bench, I'd still keep the same suggestion:

16) RHRP Scott Williamson. Might actually have to coax him with 6 figures or more, though. I still think he's a good fit. So, fine, $1 million it is.

17) RHRP Jon Huber.

18) LHRP Eric O'Flaherty.

19) DH/1B/LF: Eduardo Perez. Try to keep him for $1 million. The more and more I think about this, the more and more I'd probably exercise his option.

20) OF Jose Cruz Jr. 1 year, $1 million. Still.

21) C Greg Zaun. Haven't heard if he's going to resign, so as long as he hasn't, I'm still lookin' his direction. If not, then I'm not sure I want Fick, but for the same reason as before, he's second on my list.

Okay, so let's look at this so far:

Lineup
1B: Richie Sexson
2B: Jose Lopez
SS: Yuniesky Betancourt
3B: Adrian Beltre
CF: Ichiro
LF: ? + Ibanez
RF: ? + Snelling
C: Kenji Johjima
DH: Ibanez + ?

Rotation
SP: Felix Hernandez
SP: Jarrod Washburn
SP: Cha Seung Baek

Pen
RP: Scott Williamson
RP: Jon Huber
RP: Eric O'Flaherty
RP: George Sherrill
CL: JJ Putz

Bench
UTIL: Willie Bloomquist
UTIL: Mike Morse
C: Greg Zaun/Robert Fick
1b/DH/LF: Eduardo Perez
OF: Jose Cruz

That's roughly $70 million, and I have about $15-25 million to spend. Still need at least 2 SPs and a DH/corner OF.

For that last spot (DH), I'm going to go out on a limb. I suppose I could keep Broussard here and retain both halves of the Benuardo DH combo. But, there's someone that's available that might be worth taking a risk on for the lefty side of that platoon. I'll credit Trent Taylor, former co-author at Lookout Landing, for this idea:

22) DH: Ryan Klesko. 1 year, $2.5 million + incentives -- let's count $4 million total, with a vesting option for a second year. Give him Carl Everett's contract, and if he doesn't work out, fine. DFA him before it vests. Yeah, he's older than Broussard, and probably doesn't have much upside. And, being a career NL'er, there's a lot of risk there, too. But that 30-40 point jump in OBP would be very nice to have. Health may be of concern, with his shoulder, but since he's a DH, that wouldn't be too hard to replace (moving Ibanez to DH and inserting Cruz into the OF or calling up someone else from T-Town to play LF).

Now, with $11-21 million left to spend, here's the two pitchers the M's could spend it on.

23) RHSP Tomo Ohka. 2 years, $10 million ($4.5 million in 2007 and $5.5 million in 2008), with perhaps a 3rd year option. It's almost inevitable now. I don't like it, but, let's face it, the M's are desperate for pitching, and I'd rather have two smaller albatrosses than one potentially large one.

24) LHSP Randy Wolf. 2 years, $15 million ($7 million in 2007 and $8 million in 2008), again with a 3rd year option. I'm not sure I like this one either. I'm really struggling with the pitching. I suppose you could put Eaton in this slot, at that salary. Again, though, the concept is to break the $12-15 million you'd pay Schmidt into smaller, less-risky chunks that would hurt much less to swallow than the potential albatross you'd give Schmidt.

For the 25th slot, I leave it open for Hargrove to decide. He gets someone from our system who'd be on a minimum contract. Or, if you want to up the budget a bit, you buy out Soriano's arbitration years. So, for 2007, here's what $86 million (give or take a few hundred $K) would give ya:

Lineup
1B: Richie Sexson
2B: Jose Lopez
SS: Yuniesky Betancourt
3B: Adrian Beltre
CF: Ichiro
LF: Raul Ibanez
RF: Chris Snelling
C: Kenji Johjima
DH: RyUardo KleskErez

Rotation
SP: Felix Hernandez
SP: Jarrod Washburn
SP: Tomo Ohka
SP: Randy Wolf
SP: Cha Seung Baek

Pen
RP: Scott Williamson
RP: Jon Huber
RP: Eric O'Flaherty
RP: George Sherrill
CL: JJ Putz

Bench
UTIL: Willie Bloomquist
UTIL: Mike Morse
C: Greg Zaun/Robert Fick
1b/DH/LF: Eduardo Perez
OF: Jose Cruz

Trade Bait
Julio Mateo
Ben Broussard
Jeremy Reed
Rafael Soriano

Certainly not spectacular by any means. But, I just don't see how the M's could fill all those rotation holes without digging themselves deeper and deeper into the albatross pit. I'm still ignoring the trade market, but I believe our trade bait could return us a starting pitcher. I'd sooooo prefer that to signing Wolf and/or Ohka. But as woeful as I am at guessing what the M's would semi-realistically do to build their club through free agency, I'm even worse at speculating a) who might be available and b) what it would take to get him.

Bottom line, I really don't see the M's capable of building a playoff-caliber roster with the pieces that are available. It's certainly possible, sure, but within a $90-95 million budget, and the money they have tied up in salary already (especially joined with their seeming unwillingness to trade Sexson) I just don't see it happening.