MLBTR Originals: 8/21/11 – 8/27/11

Let's take a look back at some of the original content produced by MLBTR this past week:

• Tim Dierkes talked to Jerry Dipoto, Mike Chernoff, and Bill Geivett as part of our GM Candidates series. Meanwhile, Ben Nicholson-Smith profiled Tony LaCava and Mike Radcliff. You can see the entire list of MLBTR's GM candidates here.
• What fan wouldn't love to have a bat like Prince Fielder sitting in the middle of his or her team's lineup? You may be hoping that your team will ink Milwaukee's masher, and obviously he'll play somewhere, but Tim Dierkes has at least one reason why each of MLB's 30 teams could pass on Prince.
• Speaking of sluggers, in light of this week's Jim Thome trade, Howard Megdal takes a historical look back at when other great sluggers were traded.
• Ben Nicholson-Smith examines Chris Carpenter's 2012 option and concludes that while it's a luxury, it's a luxury on which Cardinals GM John Mozeliak may indeed choose to spend.
• Tim Dierkes conducted this week's MLBTR chat and also shared the lastest Elias rankings with readers, which are of course exclusively provided to MLBTR by Eddie Bajek.
• Tim also noted that this offseason provides a pretty weak market for free agent offense.
• Mike Axisa rounded up the latest and greatest from around the baseball blogosphere in this week's edition of Baseball Blogs Weigh In.
• In a conference call with Diamondbacks GM Kevin Towers, Ben Nicholson-Smith learned that Arizona had defense and infield depth in mind when they flipped Kelly Johnson for Aaron Hill and John McDonald.
• Sticking in the NL West, Ben also took a look at the Padres' options with Heath Bell and checked in on the Rockies' lengthy list of offseason extensions.
• Dan Mennella turned the clock back to August 2010 and checked out some of the notable August deals from a year ago.
• Tim Dierkes kicked off his Arbitration Eligibles series with a look at the Orioles and then the Red Sox.