Trading Dempster?

[Little Slide Rooter]

If you're going to trade him, trade him now and replace him with Kuroda. Assuming you can avoid giving Kuroda a no-trade clause, you can then trade him also at the deadline.

 

Or keep Dempster and sign Kuroda anyway and then trade both at the deadline - after Dempster has had time to build his value back up - since we're looking at being $20-40 million under our expected cap. Obviously if you can get a really good deal go ahead and trade him, but I tend to think it's far more likely we get a better deal at the deadline.

 

Or we could use it for Fielder and Cespedes or Solar, but that would be silly with studs like Johnson, Corpas, Sonnenstein, Jaramillo, Crisp, Wakefield, Francis, and Varitek available.