And sometimes I think that the importance #4 guys are underrated and are dismissed as such and seen as interchangeable. Obviously you don’t have the resources to have an ace at every pitching slot, but you want a decent innings-eater type in the #4 slot who can give you a chance to win (3 or 4 runs a game) and save your bullpen for days when your ace, #2, or #3 just doesn’t have it because that happens sometimes. We don’t know if Happ is one of those types, but I’d rather find that out for $500 K a year than confirm my suspicions that Marquis, who’s IP has been in steady decline since 2005 and had 30 IP less in 2008 than 2007, is not one of those types at $6 M a year.

Coste.. for Masterson.. it would need to be Coste plus like 3 prospects to make that happen

Get DeRosa for super utility and move on to Lowe & Moyer.

The only piece needed is another arm in the pen…offer Coste to the BoSox for Hansen or Masterson…they wanted him when the Phils were talking Manny with them, right?

Bottom line is this – the trade makes sense if we get DeRosa and Marquis (with the Cubs eating $6MM of Marquis’ salary), AND sign Lowe. And let me go on the record against those who think a 5-year deal for Lowe is too much. WHO GIVES A CRAP??? Everyone thinks a 3-year deal for Lowe is good. That would be nice, but that’s not the market rate this year – he will get a five year deal.

Now, in three years, this team is going to look vastly different – Howard is most likely gone, JRoll’s contract will be up, Myers and Madson will have left, Lidge’s contract will have expired and who knows if we re-sign him (or want to), the list goes on and on. The point is, clearly this team is capable of winning championships RIGHT NOW. Derek Lowe is a huge upgrade to our pitching staff, and I don’t know of anyone who thinks his performance is going to drop off in the next 3 years barring a catastrophe.

Bottom line – would you take a very legit shot at competing for the World Series for the next 3 years even if you knew that Lowe would crap out and be a fringe #5 for the last 2 years of his deal (at, let’s go high, $17MM per)? I say HELL YES. To the extent that we are competitive 3 years from now it is going to be based on guys from our farm stepping in. Which means that THEY WON’T BE PAID THAT MUCH so even if Lowe is eating money Eaton-style, it’s not going to hamstring us. And if the team falls apart by then, it still doesn’t matter. Trade Lowe at the deadline for some prospects.

Carrasco is a potential #2 starter who is MLB ready as a #5 guy right now. To trade him for a utility infielder is TOTALLY INSANE by any measure.

Now, I am not criticizing the posters here, but rather the general vibe from the team and beat writers, who still assume that our farm system is garbage. It’s not. Carrasco is worth moving (IMO) for only two players who have recently been on the block (Matt Holliday and Jake Peavy). And it was only worth trading for Holliday last summer when our RF platoon was faltering and we needed to make a playoff run – I would not have traded Carrasco for Holliday this offseason. Young, affordable pitching is the holy grail in MLB, especially for teams with budget constraints. It’s not an accident that the Padres are insisting on a slew of young pitchers in a Peavy deal.

WTF is this trade about, and who are we getting? For that kind of haul, it better not just be DeRosa and Marquis (who is a fly ball pitcher who will be next to worthless at CBP). If Vitters is not involved in this trade, Amaro is a clown, UNLESS he knows he’s got a deal close to done with Lowe and wants DeRosa as the affordable LF replacement. If that’s the way the winter meetings go down (Lowe and DeRosa), then I call it a win.

FWIW, though I don’t like the trade if all we really get is DeRosa, those who say we’re selling out the future are wrong…Happ and Kendrick are fringe #5 guys at best. It would be nice to have one of them here to avoid rushing Carrasco, but I’m confident the Phils have a better handle on that than we do. Jaramillo is the third-best catching prospect in our system (Marson and D’Arnaud). He is the definition of a throw-in. Unless you really think Happ AND Kendrick had a future on our staff, then we’re really not giving up much.