Sometimes all it takes is an educated guess to put two and two together. Hell, maybe Theo and Dave got the idea from this site yesterday – sort of a GM matchmaker (alright, that’s wishful thinking). But it’s always interesting when speculation turns to real trade talks.
Yesterday I mentioned:
"If the Pirates want Arroyo back, Craig Wilson would be a decent fit given that Youkilis can play third…the Pirates have two vacancies in their rotation but a host of candidates to fill them."
Then today in Rob Rossi’s article for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, he revealed that the Pirates are trying to trade Wilson for a starter, possibly Matt Clement or Bronson Arroyo. For the Bucs, I like the idea. Sure, their offense could use a guy like Wilson, but if they must discard him they should at least solidify the rotation.
A Pittsburgh rotation of Clement/Duke/Perez/Maholm/Snell has a chance to be quite impressive. It might be five guys with ERAs hovering around 4, but that’s actually hard to find when the average NL starter has a 4.22 ERA.
The Red Sox seem to be anticipating an injury for Trot Nixon or a failure by Mike Lowell, and expecting at least one of the two is the safe play. The club needs a player like Wilson, who can handle both right field and first base and has an .851 career OPS.
Assuming the White Sox plan to hold on to Jose Contreras, I think they might have it right. That is, there’s nothing wrong with an overload of starting pitchers. The White Sox shouldn’t expect their front five to be completely healthy and effective once again. Similarly, the Red Sox don’t necessarily have a surplus with Arroyo/Beckett/Clement/Papelbon/Schilling/Wakefield/Wells all capable of starting. Yes, that’s seven pitchers, but three of them are injury risks and Papelbon is unproven.
