Orlando Hudson is on the clock

Tony Jackson mentions the interest in Orlando Hudson in his blog but he leads off with the story in the Daily News column so it is getting lots of play. The comments at Tony's place show both support and disdain by fellow readers of this blog.

You can easily see both sides of the equation. Hudson was asking for the moon back in November but now it looks like he will be lucky to get a one year deal between 3-5 million and that is with St. Louis having terrible alternatives at 2nd base.

Why, because any team will have to give up a 1st round pick. Just for fun a few weeks ago I took a look at the 15th - 20th 1st round picks in this decade ( we have the 17th pick). Some hits and misses. If a number one pick was not involved I'm sure Hudson would have found a home by now.

So the question is, would the incremental improvement in offense from Hudson, plus the large improvement in defense be worth losing the 17th round pick? The money at this point is inconsequential.

To me it comes down to this. If the Dodgers sign Manny then I'd go for it and sign Hudson. The difference between Hudson and DeWitt could be the difference between the postseason. If we don't sign Manny then it would be a waste of a draft pick and losing a year of DeWitt gaining experience to sign Hudson.

The worse projection is quite a bit better then the best DeWitt projection. Not that many of us agreed with the DeWitt projections. The THT projection is sweet for a 2nd baseman with the defense that Hudson provides.