Another day, another countdown. We heard that Manny has cancelled an appearance so that he can be ready to sign a contract at any time. For some reason that is giving some the idea that a contract signing is immiment but it is probably just Manny not wanting to appear and using that as an excuse.
Last year in April Jim Edmunds was every bit as bad as Andruw Jones and very quickly the Padres tired of him and released him on May 9th, eating the final year of his eight million dollar deal. The Cubs desperate for offense picked him up and in the beginning it looked like another losing bet for the Cubs. Then the old Jim Edmunds showed up and he posted an OPS of 935 during his time with the Cubs. He attributed his recovery with:
"After coming to Chicago, I widened my stance, got off the medication I was taking for the concussion and went back to what I've always done. I got in the box one day, took a pitch and I was like, 'Wow, there it is!' It was that simple. Everything has gone pretty smoothly since."
Jim Edmunds can only hit RHP at this stage in his career and at age 39 he may have only one more productive year left. So we need to find a tag team platoon player for him and so I'm going to once again hit up the Nationals but instead of bringing over Nick the Stick I'm going to acquire Wily Mo Pena. Wily Mo seems like he's been around forever but he's actually only 27 years old. Another inconsistent player with injury problems he has at times shown the ability to whack the baseball 2008 nonwithstanding. You can hope that Pena's 2008 season was like Daryl Wards 2003 season with the Dodgers. A mystery. These guys have warts that is why these guys are available cheap, but the production combined could be a 850-925 OPS on a daily basis. When the alternative is Juan Pierre you search the cubbyholes. Or you could just let Pee Wee take the LHP at bats. Or Repko, but I'd like to see what Wily Mo can do one last time.
So this second alternative would find Edmunds and Wily Mo Pena playing left field. This would also strengthen the teams bench which as it stands right now has zip power.