They removed a lot of dead wood from their 40-man; they signed a very good left handed relief pitcher in Jeremy Affeldt; they signed a very good right handed relief pitcher in Bob Howry (after a down year, but no reason he can’t bounce back), they took Perdomo in the Rule 5 draft, and because of the way they’ve built up their bullpen, are in a position to keep him if he shows them anything at all. Then comes word of the Randy Johnson signing. They can now trade Jonathan Sanchez or Noah Lowry or any other almost ready for prime time arm in their system for a young bat. They have the means to sign one of the bats still out there-and trade for one to.

Remember, the AL West division winner wasn’t much over .500 last year. I don’t see that the other teams out there have done much to improve. The Giants have given out some bad contracts the last few years, but this year I like the moves they made.

I would also mention the Indians, while not terribly active, targeted a couple of relievers, and got two out of three-one cost them money, and the other one a 4th outfielder, who was expendable because of Grady Sizemore.

The White Sox have had a bad off season; their moves are just bizarre. If Kenny Williams is done, they’re in big trouble.

As far as the Cardinals go, I’d feel better about their off season if they hadn’t used the word “agressive”-if you’re going to take a cautious approach, a wait and see approach, or lets watch the market unfold approach, or a FAT approach, please don’t be quoted saying you’re going to be aggressive, because it makes me not want to believe you when you speak. I really DO want to believe what you say.

be very different. The Yanks have clearly made the most improvement and no team is going to come close to them. However, the rest of the teams perceived as players in the offseason could still make some very big moves.

The Cards could still land a player or two by free agency and they could still make a major trade or two. This team is still in transition and apparently transitioning to a younger team. That is fine but as it has been said before the team needs to take advantage of the Pujols prime years. I think they are a few players away from being really good and it is frustrating to me that they will not take that extra step to go for it while they have Pujols. The time to be conservative is during a real rebuilding process which will probably be when Pujols is gone.

Additionally, the Red Sox were not mentioned and while they have done nothing bad, they have done nothing while the Yanks have loaded up and as a result have had a very poor off-season so far.

I like Mo a lot and think he’ll probably salvage something out of this post season but I don’t think he’s done well so far. The early mantra was that we’d focus on LOOGYs for the start of the off season and then see how everything else would shake out. That seemed reasonable but we didn’t really do it. First I think that we’ll regret the four year contract for Lohse. It’s the very rare pitcher that pitches well for that period of time and they’re pretty easy to identify. Lohse doesn’t fit the description. It’s not a killer contract but we’ll be lucky to get a good year or two out of him and we have plenty of middle of the rotation starters in the pipeline. Lohse, and Looper for that matter, were worth offering arbitration to but we’re apparently philosophically opposed to that. Then we traded for Greene. Like everybody else I think it’s an okay trade but it offers no solution to our shortstop problem till Kozma or somebody develops. I suspect we could have done it later also and seen how the shortstop supply shook out. We apparently decided that we have all the LOOGYs we need in the person of the shaky and possibly injured Trevor Miller and then decided that we absolutely had to have a closer. Much time and effort was put into signing Fuentes and most of us breathed a sigh of relief when it didn’t happen. I personally liked the original plan and think that we should use the money we eventually saved on Miller’s contract and offer Will Ohman a million more than anybody else and that first part of the plan will be fulfilled. I’d then be fine with practicing patience and seeing what our outfielders and prospects other than Perez and Rasmus might get us in starting pitching and second base.

What bothers me most about this front office is that they talk a good game, then even when they’ve picked a player they want they low ball him. If they really wanted Fuentes, they should have offered more than they did. The offer was insulting to Fuentes. After reading that Tony identified him as the team’s number one priority, he gets an offer that is one year shorter and two million/year cheaper than he wants. What kind of number one priority is that? They didn’t even offer what Kerry Wood had already signed for. Was Fuentes their second choice? That whole deal was embarrassing. I mean, everyone in the press stipulated that Fuentes was the second best closer on the market, right behind k-rod. So K-rod signs for 3/37. Wood signs for 2/22. That puts Fuentes smack in the middle. But the team offers the third best contract at 2/16-18. That is an insulting offer to Fuentes. Period.
This is not aggressive, or even prudent. It is just stupid.
I think the team should overpay if they feel that strongly about a target. Pay a premium price for a premium player. Don’t low ball him. I am disappointed in Mo so far this off season. Last year he made some good moves, this year not so much.

I would slot them ahead of the the Mariners. They added Mike Jacobs to play first base and upgraded with Crisp in the OF. They gave up relivers they can replace from the minors.

I have a hard time believing that any of the signed free agents — even Sabathia — are going to turn out to be good value for dollar, because the dollars involved are so plentiful. 3/33 for Fuentes would only make sense if you’re talking about Canadian dollars, and maybe not even then. Teams with the patience to wait out the spendthrifts are likely to do more to improve themselves than the ones who spend early and often, with the possible exception of the Yankees. I’m not uncomfortable with Mo being in the “patient” group.

They looked at everything and decided that this was the year to go for it. The 2010 free agent class looks to be very weak and by buying all of the free agents in the same year, they are only giving up 2nd and 3rd round picks for type A free agents. Plus, they don’t worry much about losing draft picks because they can buy any player they want and can sign international free agents to fill those holes. (Another one of baseball’s loopholes that favors the richest teams.) Baseball’s economic structure is a joke.

As for the Cardinals, I don’t want to pass judgement until it is a finished product, but I hope they don’t go sign some mediocre veteran pitcher to a 4-6 million dollar contract who is no better than Mitchell Boggs. Don’t spend millions on mediocrity. (which makes me question the Lohse deal more)