Some offseason thoughts

We're a week or so from the annual GM meetings, where Dave Littlefield will undoubtedly be trying to do SOMETHING. So what will he do? It's tough to say right now, but I do have some thoughts at the moment that I wish he'd keep in mind this offseason.

• Right now he should be convincing Mark Redman of the attractiveness of being a free-agent. While it's possible he comes out and has a great April/May next year and we can trade him for something useful, it's also likely that he comes out and sucks something awful and we're stuck with his salary. Hell, even if we can trade him we probably have to hope for Jody Gerut at best. If he opts out it can make things a lot easier and we can give his rotation spot to someone that actually deserves it.
  
• If you're seriously going to put thought into signing someone like Jacque Jones or Preston Wilson, ask yourself if paying them $5 million+ a year is going to get you more production than you could get in right field than you would from Craig Wilson and Nate McLouth. McLouth may not fill the potential we saw in that last month and 2004 might be a flash in Craig's pan, but not everyone is Reggie Sanders just begging to hit .280 with 30 homers and 90 RBIs for a pittance.
  
• Yes, trading a pitcher is tempting, I won't pretend that it's not. Just keep in mind that you have to be careful who you trade. Duke and probably Maholm should be absolutely untouchable. Kip is at his absolute lowest value point. You can trade him now if you want, but if Jim Tracy and Coburn are serious about working with him (and I really do think he can be fixed), you might be better served to wait it out and see if he's not worth something more during the season. The obvious mark for a trade is Perez. Lots of people are excited about the prospects of sending Perez to Cincy for Adam Dunn. We'll pretend for a mintue that could actually happen (I don't know if I'd make that trade if I was Cincy, Perez raises a ton of questions, plus we'll be paying Dunn a bunch of money for those two years), just remember that trading Perez is a double edged sword. If you know something about his health that I don't, by all means do it. If you don't, then don't forget Mark Langston and Mike Campbell like the rest of the world has. They're the guys that the Expos got for Randy Johnson. I'm not saying don't trade Perez, I'm just saying that if you do it, you better do it right because Oliver Perez could be a scary pitcher in this league for years to come.
  

That's all I've really got at the minute. I'll be able to weigh in a little better when we start to know what DL is thinking about doing. Until then, I'm just going to assume he's going to try and trade one of the young pitchers and sign bottom of the barrell outfielders/first basemen that won't be much better than the young guys we have.