Friday, August 15, 2008

Belliard to the Dodgers? Hell Yeah!

I really like the talk of Belliard to the Dodgers. Not only is he expendable on our current roster, but Ned Colletti might be the only GM in baseball left whom Bowden could fleece (ok, maybe Ed Wade). And flush from all the glorious praise that he got for the Manny deal (which I don't really understand), he could be feeling particularly confident in his own judgment.

The Dodgers could use a back-up 2B, I guess, since Jeff Kent needs to sit every 4-5 days. Right now their backup MI is... wait for it... Angel Berroa and Pablo Ozuna. Oy.

Of course, they do have an ace fielding SS/2B named Chin-Lung Hu in their system who was last year's futures game MVP but then scuffled badly in 100 ABs earlier this season (don't bother with the stats--he was overmatched). But he's done ok in AAA this year (.293 / .333 / .374), and even if he's just used as a defensive replacement late in games, I'm not sure why it wouldn't make more sense to use him than to trade for Belliard. He also would allow me to make "Hu's on 2nd? Hu's at short?" jokes, which means I'm rooting for him mightily.

Of course the problem is that even if Hu was hitting like Troy Tulowitzki, there's no bad, aging veteran Ned Colletti wouldn't prefer over any 23-year-old with upside. The more I think about it, how about Belliard for Hu? I know, we already have a surplus of these kids of guys, but if we collect enough of them, maybe one of them will have the light go on and get the OBP up over .350.

Really, there's any number of guys in the Dodgers system I'd deal for Ronnie. How about Ronnie and Redding for Scott Elbert? I know, that's silly, but this is Ned Colletti! Just tell him we're sending him two veterans who have "been there" for a prospect. I'm sure he's never even heard of Elbert.

OK so maybe that's still pie in the sky. All I'm saying is that this is a team that signed Juan Pierre to bury Matt Kemp and Andruw Jones to block Andre Ethier, and banished Andy LaRoche to make room for Casey Blake. That's a team I want to deal with.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You may want to go ahead and get that petition fired up on the front pg tonight in case Crow doesn't sign. I think you'll be able to rack up quite a few signatures in the ensuing hours.