the third base problem

i am of the opinion that derosa has dug himself too big a hole this
year for any hope of an eventual turnaround. his hitting and defense
have both gone headfirst into the tank, and he's clearly lost a
certain amount of confidence. true, he probably can't play *worse*,
but the braves in their current situation can't afford to sit around
and find out if even the old derosa emerges, much less the 20-25 HR
super-derosa that some optimists predicted.

one possibility that interests me: aaron boone is unsigned and will be
looking to join a team later in the summer reportedly. he tore his ACL
back in november if i'm not mistaken, and the recovery period for that
injury seems to have shortened in recent years. clearly he's no
instant sparkplug for the lineup, but:

a) my gut tells me JS won't go out there and get an impact player via
trade (beltran, ordonez, adrian gonzalez, jenkins, sexson, who knows),
due either to his judgement or that of the ownership. boone could be
had pretty cheaply now.

b) he might not be able to help this year, but there's a chance he
would, and he could definitely plug the gap next year (or until
marte/betemit is ready).

c) he always was a streaky player, but even the bad aaron boone wasn't
as bad as derosa is now.

well anyway, this strikes me as being a more likely scenario than ever
seeing chipper back at 3B.

-t

"taylor upchurch" <taymasterj.TakeThisOut@yahoo.com> wrote
> a) my gut tells me JS won't go out there and get an impact player via
> trade (beltran, ordonez, adrian gonzalez, jenkins, sexson, who knows),
> due either to his judgement or that of the ownership. boone could be
> had pretty cheaply now.

Well, the other thing is that JS doesn't have too much to offer in trade
right now. Andy Marte is about it in terms of players who'd bring something
good. If we had any tradeable AAA players, they'd be on the ML team right
now.

Colin