For some reason i couldn't post a comment to the previous entry so i'm starting a new one.

I agree with you on Lowell. No way we get him. I didn't really bother wasting time with scenarios, no shot in hell. Especially now that he is a world series MVP. 

Rule V draft is always a good place to look to fill holes.  I believe that also takes place during the winter GM meetings, so we might have taken care of a good number of tasks by the time those meetings are over.

Everyone is clamoring to keep santana, while he is great I would rather have a good starting rotation, which we can still have without Johan (there is just less room for error among the other starters without that stopper in the rotation) AND a good offense (which i'm not sure we can have with Santana and without Hunter).  Having one great starting pitcher is good, and everyone says without a dominant number 1 starter you can't make it far in the playoffs.  Well we have proved in our recent trips to the playoffs that is not true. The year we got to the ALCS (2002 i believe) we had 4 very good starters, then the years we made it and lost we did have a dominant number 1 but not much else.  Again with the KG parallel, we know what we are going to get if we keep santna and tie up a bunch of money with him.  He will put up cy young numbers but still only get 15-17 wins and have double digit loses because we ill average about 3 runs per game all year.  Without him we might have some exciting young players to watch and surprise some people like the d-backs and rockies did last year.  Or the marlins a few years ago when they were in contention right up to the end, when everyone thought they were the worst team ever.  Also, we should fire scott ullger.