Third baseman required..one name might just fill the bill

the problem is, what do you do with E5 if you get Figgins … I do not think you can realistically keep both on the bench and can you move E5?

Hopefully the Angels decide to keep Figgins which would pretty much doom Brandon Wood on that team. Hopefully the Jays take advantage and snag him!

praise to Haynes’ sense of reason - are you listening JP?

We’re probably going to be in the bottom 15 in W-L record, so it will be protected. We could sign 25 type As and not lose our first round pick.

that’s only a half win above replacement, and we can’t afford a black hole like that on our roster.

even if we land Figgins (or another 3B), to keep E5 as backup/DH/PH. Maybe Cito would pinch hit more often if he had some slightly better options to choose from. Right now even most of the starters can’t hit, let alone the bench. I’d rather see E5 as a pinch hitter than Johnny Mac.

Has E5 ever played any 1B? If he could be taught to play it at a semi-adequate level (it shouldn’t be too hard to be at least better than Millar), he would actually be quite useful as a DH slash platoon partner for Overbay slash backup 3B.

Though it’s been nice watching Ruiz raking over the past few games I’m just not sold (at least not yet) on the guy as a long-term DH option. I think the book on him is going to get out there pretty quick, the pitchers are going to realize he swings at everything, and pretty soon he’s not going to see anything he can actually hit. He is too old to suddenly learn plate discipline and/or radically alter his mechanics (the way someone like Snider potentially could if faced with the same problem) and that is the reason why guys like him get regarded as career minor leaguers—not because they don’t have the skills or couldn’t potentially do some damage, because they aren’t in a position to make the necessary adjustments to succeed long-term in the bigs. I believe that the only reason he has raked so consistently in AAA is that the pitchers are mostly young guys who think the only way to get ahead is to go right at hitters and try to blow it by them. That plus the higher turnover at that level meaning he probably doesn’t see the same pitchers constantly like he would in MLB, and I doubt there’s the same level of scouting/watching film either.

4.75M is expensive for a backup, no doubt about that, but if the alternative is to trade him and get garbage in return (right now it’s hard to imagine getting more than one middling prospect—so basically it would be a salary dump and nothing more), we might be better just to treat it as a sunk cost and see what he can do in a utility role. Particularly if we’re seriously contemplating trying to make a run at it in 2010 (which I find hard to believe, but last I heard that’s still how it’s being spun).

agreed - Ruiz has shown himself to be an excellent hitter so far … but alas, he has yet to prove himself over a longer period … however, he has achieved a feat that Dellucci could not, so there is legitimate reason for optimism, but yes, we need to see him keep it up through Sep

that said, to me, he only looks like he is getting better in terms of comportment at the plate