The traffic jam is nice, but it will shortly reach the point at which it's a genuine problem. Major league baseball has this concept of a 40-man roster, and options limits. The time-river goes over a waterfall and you start losing these players for zero.
Just said that in the other thread too. We're gonna have to Sexson somebody (or two) outta here just because we have a Thome in front of them. That's not the worst problem to have.
Just make sure you keep the Thome of the two. Right now it looks like Liddi will have to go because Smoak's at 1B, Montero is at DH (at least partially) and both Vinnie and Seager are ahead of him at 3rd, with F-Mart having more options left.
Seager and Trayvon are also on the list. But we still get this year to figure it out, to see who steps up. If Liddi is the monster instead of Vinnie or Kyle, then we should be able to see that before trading somebody. Same with Trayvon vs. Wells vs. Saunders. Trayvon, Saunders and Liddi are all out of options after this year, right? It's now or never.
But I'd still wonder who you trade for. I would think a replacement for Ichiro in RF because there's not a lot else that we can pay a huge price for that we don't already have (in theory). 3B is covered, SS has two blue-chip upper-minors prospects, 2B is an All-Star, 1B is good, C/DH is set, we have 3 or 4 CF options, and Carp should be pretty good for nothin. We just have to wait for the roster to mature.
So I'm still thinking we should pry an Alex Gordon out of KC. Of course, with as much money as we should have I'd rather just sign Josh Hamilton...
I guess we could trade Smoak + whatever for Votto, or Catricala/Liddi + for Wright. I mean, who do you target? Can't get Braun, Fielder, M. Cabrera, Kemp, Stanton, Cargo, Tulo, Pujols, Longoria...
And Votto and Hamilton are FAs in 2013. Might as well just sign em, right?
Guess we need to buy a crazy-good bullpen to back our starters. That'd start at the trade deadline, but we'll need to be in it. Like you said, assets only ripen for a certain amount of time.
Sooner or later they have to play for you, or you need to trade em.
~G