=== Dr's R/X ===
1. Wilson is ahead of Greg Halman in line.
He's not as gifted, but he is (much) older and is handling the strike zone better. Kelly's litmus test of hard AB's when behind in the count is telling here. Wilson is solid against tough pitching, in tough counts.
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2. The M's have seen enough of Milton Bradley to answer The Big Question. ... he's not going to be part of their next pennantwinner.
Make a decision, boys. MB isn't in your lineup when you win in 2011 or 2012, so move on sooner rather than later.
Politically, it can be tough to broach the subject of writing seven-figure monthly salary checks to a guy you're not using. But in this case, you can easily blame the $12m writeoff on Bavasi, on my man Mat Olkin and on Mat's 95-win plan of Erik Bedard and Carlos Silva.
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3a. Ideal would be a consolidation trade to clear roster space -- let's say Saunders + Lopez + Fister for Kevin Slowey-plus or something -- but let's presume that's not possible.
3b. Painful as it is, the M's have to write off Kotchman, write off Milton Bradley ... and
3c. Smoak 1b, Branyan dh, Saunders-Wilson LF platooning and taking some DH and CF at-bats.
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Everybody assumes that the M's can't eat Bradley's salary. But this is a club that did so with Carlos Silva, owing him twice as much. And this is a club that just pulled off a mammoth blockbuster trade in! the! division!. This is a front office with stones. Execute the same maneuver with Bradley that you did with Silva.
Saunders' production has improved the offense from where it was before he got here. Giving some of Kotchman's and Bradley's AB's to Mike Wilson would probably do the same.
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=== Dr's Prognosis ===
Supposing that Mike Wilson is indeed a 250 / 350 / 500 hitter right now, and supposing that Michael Saunders is going to hit 30 homers a year, well ... you have four plus ML outfielders next year.
That's not a bad thing. Earl used to have four good outfielders. Sometimes he had five real good ones. And in 1973, Earl had five guys over 124 OPS+ in the outfield, except Paul Blair who was a 108-OPS center fielder who was better on defense than Franklin Gutierrez.
Here is a season in which Earl rotated three corner OF's who all had 150 OPS's with Paul Blair in center. Heh! 122-141 games for four guys, including Frank Blinkin' Robinson.
The World Series winner, 1970, he had a backup corner outfielder playing 4-5 days a week behind Buford and Robbie and Blair ... and OPS'ing 156 ...
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With this OF traffic jam, you might want to start letting four jell, anyway. But you could do five. I don't know why Franklin Gutierrez has to play 155 games; Paul Blair didn't.
Get you some batter-pitcher matchups. Score some runs.
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BABVA,
Dr D
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