Pitching depth and "scrappy" outfielders

If you were worried about the starting rotation after Josh Fogg was shown the door yesterday, don't be, says Dave Littlefield. After all, we just picked up Victor Santos, you know, that guy that was 4-13 on the Brewers last year and not only that, he says he'll pretend not to hate Ian Snell for just long enough that Santos can "out perform" him in the spring and win the 5th starters job. And if all else fails, former uberprospect Sean Burnett could be ready for the majors by June.

Actually, I really doubt any of those options will be worse than Fogg was last year. It's just that somehow, nothing Dave Littlefield says about anything reassures me. In reality, Dave Williams was the 5th starter that no one had any confidence in last year and he turned out OK in the long run. And it is true Sean Burnett was Zach Duke before Zach Duke made being Zach Duke cool, but we'll have to see what he does in Indy before anyone will have any idea what to expect from him this year.

In the same article, Dejan also mentions that the former apple of Dave Littlefield's eye, Eric Byrnes was non-tendered by the Orioles. If you'll recall, DL tried hard to get Byrnesy from Oakland last year, only to be rebuffed repeatedly when the price was said to be Mike Gonzalez. Byrnes, in turn, sucked hard and was dealt to Colorado, then Baltimore. He was never a great hitter before last year, but last year he was flat out awful. In Byrnes' defense, he also wore a loose fitting cap that fell off a lot when he made his unnecessary diving catches in the outfield so he could be on BBTN's Web Gems at least twice a week. Dejan describes him as "scrappy." If that's the best adjective we can come up with for him, my vote is to stay away. He primarily plays left and we kind of already have a left fielder who's pretty good, plus I can't imagine him being better than Duffy and/or McLouth would be in center and putting him in right completely defeats the whole "looking for another big bat" thing.