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Landestoy Luke

By Landestoy Luke

Trades trades trades. Everyone loves talking about trades. Sometimes, LL thinks people are more interested in trades and transactions than they are in baseball itself. As such, this is Christmastime for many a baseball fan. After thousands of rumors, baseball’s trading deadline bears fruit, whether disappointingly or excitedly. Two of the biggest names have come off the board in Dan Haren and Cliff Lee. There’s still some stuff bound to happen though.

Word is the Giants are going hard for Marlins 3B Jorge Cantu. Of course they are. GM Brian Sabean is in love with counting stats that really don’t amount to a hill of beans. Cantu drove in 100 runs last year. That’s music to Sabean’s ears. Never mind that RBIs don’t mean a hill of beans when it comes to the value of a hitter. He’s the type of player the Giants acquire, plug into the lineup, then wonder why they still aren’t scoring enough runs. They picked up Ryan Garko last year. You know…because he hit 21 homers two seasons ago. Sabean also picked up Freddy Sanchez. You know…because he’s hit .300 a couple times. Dodger fans are thankful that Sabean is stupid enough to neutralize the Giants’ great pitching staff.

Speaking of the Blue, they’re supposedly interested in Royals OF Scott Podsednik. This has all the makings of a Ned Colletti acquisition. Podsednik is “scrappy”. He has 35 steals. He’s “been there” as a member of the 2005 White Sox. Colletti collects players like this like nerds collect action figures. Guys like Jamey Carroll who “play the game the right way”, but add no real value to a team other than siphoning playing time from better players. The harm in an acquisition like this isJoe Torre gets enamored with little play things like Podesednik and tends to give them more playing time over the likes of guys like Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier. Reed Johnson will be back from the DL soon and is more than capable of being that guy. Xavier Paul is extremely useful as a 5^th OF. You don’t need to trade pieces of the farm system to go get guys like Podesednik.

As for the biggest name left out there, Roy Oswalt, expect nothing to happen. It’s basically between the Dodgers and Phillies and neither wants to break the bank for Oswalt. The Phillies can’t afford to trade top prospect Dominic Brown now that Shane Victorino is on the DL. The Dodgers won’t give up James Loney or Matt Kemp (nor should they). The Haren trade may have depressed the market value of Oswalt and effectively taken him off the board, so odds are nothing will happen.

It will be fun waiting to see if it does though. Be prepared to be underwhelmed, though, as names like Scott Downs and Javier Lopez are the biggest ones moved on Saturday.

Landestoy Luke is a former semi-pro baseball player in the California-Nevada Independent League. Luke served as best man for the wedding of former Dodger hurler Ray Searage. After spending some time as an advance scout in the Mexicali League, Luke now spends his time as a freelance writer.