Dodgers Web doings: Gearing up as the trading deadline approaches

Eight more days until the July 31 non-waiver trading deadline, and do you know where your budding Dodgers pitcher is?

The Dodgers could use an ace. They could use a fifth starter. They could use a middle reliever. Heck, right now they could use an outfielder.

This is a busy time for General Manager Ned Colletti, who has managed to do the rabbit-out-of-the-hat routine the last couple years. And very inexpensive rabbits.

Can he do it again? Possibilities are everywhere, certainties absolutely nowhere.

Here is how the Web is looking at the trading market, and how the Dodgers might fit in:

-- NBCsports.com’s Craig Calcaterra offers a good overview on what he calls the 25 "most buzzed-about trade targets.’’

He has the Dodgers interested in Ted Lilly and Jake Westbrook.

-- ESPN.com’s Jason Stark calls the starting-pitcher market mediocre.

He also disputes the notion the Dodgers won’t take on salary to make a trade. Strark writes that the Dodgers have told clubs they’re willing to take on an additional $2 million to $3 million to make a deal.

-- Yahoo.com’s Tim Brown reviews the starting pitchers who are available, and the likelihood of the Big Two -- Roy Oswalt and Dan Haren -- getting moved.

-- ESPN.com’s Jerry Crasnick reviews the relievers available, calling it an underwhelming group.

He has Matt Capps and Octavio Dotel at the top of his list.

-- Dodgerdivorce.com’s Josh Fisher writes an overview of the McCourts’ divorce for ESPN/LA.com, trying to answer all possible outcomes of either a settlement or trial.

-- Steve Dilbeck

Comments

[alanw19]

All interesting.

The best line - Dodgers would take on $2 million to $3 million. Makes me laugh. Even if they do, that's a drop in the bucket for the No. 2 market team which played this year so far with a paltry $95 million payroll. I'd say we've got room to accept another $20 million in payroll, so for what's left of the season, that would equate to about $6 or $7 million. Just equate. If we took on a little more, well, we've definitely saved over $10 million already from the floor level of where we should have been to start the season.

Got to get rid of McCourts - need the judge to help us. The SF Giant Colletti would be next.

To paraphrase the late Bo Schembechler, "We need a Dodgers man leading the Dodgers."

Sure wish Lasorda and Scully had the investment group. They know what it means to be Dodgers.

[BlueOrf]

Haren Haren Haren. I can't believe the Dodgers aren't focussing on him with a laser. Maybe they are doing so under the radar. Let us hope. He wants us the same way Oswalt wants the Cards. He wants to go home to SoCal, so get him! And if Oswalt goes to the Cards, you darn better get Haren else you and everybody else in baseball is going to get blown away by the Redbirds.

Ted Lilly is not the guy (the Dodgers crushed him themselves), nor is Westbrook. We don't want a placeholder. We want a monster to strike some fear back into the league. Get Haren and we will have the two toughest strikeout guys in the NL--Haren and Kershaw--just like we once had Drysdale and Sandy.

Give up Broxton and Martin, or three great prospects such as May, Lindsay and Trayvon Robinson. Do it, Ned. Don't wait too long and lose it. Danny boy, come home to the Blue!

[Stan]

I don't understand Jason Stark of ESPN.com when he states "the Dodgers will take on an additional $2 to $3 million" to show they will spend money. Does he mean they will pay a pitcher, for instance, that amount? What can you get for that, except slugs? Does he mean adding to the salary that the player already has coming to him, to get him? His statement that we should dismiss the notion that the Dodgers aren't willing to spend money is straight out of the Dodger front office. When did Stark get the handout?