Like I said, I’m not real interested in talking about BALCO and steroids. It’s not that I don’t have an opinion or don’t care–obviously this is all pretty disturbing stuff for anyone who loves the game of baseball–but right now there is so much flying around that it’s hard to separate fact from fiction. I don’t know what MLB will or should do about the situation, and I don’t know what impact this will have on the way players of our era are viewed by future generations.

I’ve already gone on longer than I’d intended. I will say that some of the more well-considered commentary I’ve seen is coming from Baseball Musings and Dodger Thoughts. Go visit them or one of the other fine blogs on the right for more discussion on steroids.

So, closer to home, what’s going on? Sean Burroughs will be getting a raise. Thanks to service time already accrued, Burroughs is eligible for arbitration. His salary is expected to top $1M. Scott Linebrink and Ramon Vazquez are the other Padres eligible for arbitration. The club is also working on a long-term deal for Jake Peavy.

Woody Williams, Jose Lima, and Paul Byrd are mentioned as possible fallback options if the Padres don’t re-sign David Wells. Here’s how each of them did in 2004:

    Age     IP  H/9 HR/9 BB/9 SO/9  ERA ERA+
WW   38  189.2 9.16 0.95 2.75 6.22 4.18 100
JL  "32" 170.1 9.41 1.74 1.80 4.91 4.07 102
PB   34  114.1 9.68 1.42 1.50 6.22 3.94 110

All were roughly league average last year, all are over 30, and all have great control. Lima and Byrd cough up a ton of homers. Lima has anemic strikeout totals.

Given Byrd’s injury history and the fact that he won the fewest (8) games among the three last year, he’d probably be the cheapest. I wouldn’t give him more than a 1-year deal and I’d want it laced with incentives.

I still like the trade Jonny German and I came up with (see comments) where Vazquez would go to Toronto for Josh Towers:

Age     IP   H/9 HR/9 BB/9 SO/9  ERA ERA+
 27  116.1 11.45 1.24 2.01 3.95 5.11  95

Sure there are some serious holes in that line, but he’s young and cheap. And it’s not like the Pads have big plans for Vazquez.

Then again, the U-T seems to think a deal with Wells is close so this may all be a pointless exercise anyway. Note that hidden toward the end of the article, Mark Sweeney and Eric Young are mentioned as possible free agent targets:

         Age  PA  BA OBP SLG BB SO OPS+
Sweeney   35 215 266 377 508 32 51 110
Young     38 402 288 377 381 43 28  91

Sweeney is one of the better left-handed pinch-hitters in the game. Young draws walks and mainly plays second base and left field, although he’s got experience everywhere except behind the plate and at first base. Veterans with on base skills? Makes sense to me.

Of course, it’s all speculation at this point. There are still some very good in-house candidates for jobs as well. We’ve already talked about Brad Baker on the pitching side. On offense, guys like Jon Knott and Jake Gautreau (assuming he isn’t taken in the Rule V draft) are probably as ready as they’re going to be and deserve a shot, either in San Diego or somewhere elsewhere.

Anything could happen and it probably will. Stay tuned…