A Day Late But...

Zach Greinke was finally traded. And no, it wasn't to the Dodgers, though reports say they were deeply involved in talks with Kansas City to the point they apparently brought a third team into the mix... until they ran out of time. Greinke was eventually traded to Milwaukee in the middle of the night early Sunday morning.

The return wasn't as good as I would have imagined, but the Royals did fairly well in getting two solid young kids from the Brewers in Lorenzo Cain and Alicedes Escobar.

Back to the Dodgers. I'm not sure how exactly a trade for Greinke would have worked for them. First, they already have six starters. Four of them just signed on as free agents (three were with the team at the end of the season). Greinke is owed about $13M each of the next two seasons, and the Blue would have had to unload salary (hence getting a third team involved?) to be able to fit that contract within the payroll budget. (It stands at roughly $110M now for 2011.) Plus, of the other two starters, Chad Billingsley would be the one starter they probably would have had to move to free up a spot in the rotation for Greinke. But even then, the logistics wouldn't have really added up.

So, Greinke wound up in Milwaukee. And this after he refused to waive his no-trade clause to go to Washington, who had a deal in place with the Royals for the righty. The Yankees and Rangers, among others, were also said to be interested, but neither team was apparently in deep enough talks with KC for Greinke's services.

In the end, Greinke joins a rotation that already has Yovani Gallardo, recently-acquired Shaun Marcum and Randy Wolf. And there's talk they might even be in on free agent Carl Pavano, too. Either way, you could make the argument that the Brewers now boast one of the top four rotations in the National League, behind Philadelphia (Halladay, Lee, Oswalt, Hamels), San Francisco (Lincecum, Cain, Sanchez, Bumgarner, Zito) and the Dodgers (Kershaw, Billingsley, Lilly, Kuroda, Garland, Padilla). And with their lineup that includes Prince Fielder, Ryan Braun, Cory Hart and Chris McGehee, the Brewers have quickly made themselves serious contenders in the N.L. Central again and could battle the Phillies for best overall team in the N.L.

Let the fun begin already!

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Meanwhile, the Dodgers continue to lose out on left field options as players they have interest in continue to find other homes. Bill Hall recently signed with Houston to play second base. Austin Kearns returned to Cleveland today. And now rumor has it the Angels covet Scott Podsednik. (Frankly, they can have him!) So where might that leave the Dodgers?

Well they've been linked in recent days to Marcus Thames, though he's not very good defensively, and the Hairston Brothers, Scott and Jerry, Jr. And for whatever it's worth, neither of them should be everyday players either.

So, dare I say or ask this? Why not just bring back Manny for another year?! Ha!