Alright, it's a slow news day again, and I expect it to continue to be one of those days. So I'm taking what I can get this morning, and it's Richard Justice, who provides some pretty intelligent insight into why it is that Drayton will force these trades.
RJ/the Astros' brass have calculated that payroll would be $120 million if you just froze the roster (I'll do some number crunching as to the validity of that latter, for now a strong part of me wants to call B/S on Richard Justice). Justice then goes on to lament the fact we can't sign Pettittte or Randy Johnson if that is the case, at which point this post almost became a FJM-wanna be post, but it's immediately followed with some rational commentary.
Justice ponders who would play third base and who would close? While ignoring the possiblity of just slotting Tejada over and cutting our loses with a glove ready, bat deficit Manzella or whoever else is qualified in our farm system, he throws out Chris Johson, who no one believes is ready. Justice's latter question, who would close? Is by far the scarier scenario to contemplate: Coop would be forced to have a closer by committee. I truly believe his head would explode as he tried to strategize platoon splits, leverage, and usage patterns as the game progressed -- as opposed to just pressing the 8th and 9th inning buttons on the bull pen phone.
Finally, Justice wants to know who we're going to get in return. To which I'll add: good question. Any thoughts on possible match-ups for Wiggy and Valverde?