Quote:

britneyspearsatemyshorts said:
Encarcion isn't the future, Clayton wasnt acquired to be higlight reel. Narrons frustration with Encarcion was growing day by day. Jim Bowden is prolly one of the few GM's to take on a player like Encarcion.



For someone Narron was so frustrated by, he certainly didn't mind sending him out there every day, even when he had other ostensibly useful infield parts on the bench, like Rich Aurilia and Ryan Freel.

Felipe Lopez is not great defensively(though I don't see how that matters, given that Royce Clayton isn't either, and Brandon Phillips was moved to second base while in the Indians organization for a reason), but he was a good leadoff man, with a nice OBP and a terrific basestealing rate.

I do agree with you that if they didn't shore up the bullpen, they probably wouldn't have competed anyway...but with that being the case, why wouldn't they trade for prospects? Try to stockpile for the future? As it is, they didn't make their pen good enough to be a real contender, and they gave up two valuable young players in the process.

MisterJLA is RACKing awesome.