Well, sure I guess the idea would be that now is better than a time you identify where 40 man rosters are ripe for external plucking (I guess that would be the offseason?), but that assumes a certain amount of inevitability to the moves, no? If there is an option to not have to make the moves at all, then isn't that the better one? But isn't now one of the times where there is more 40 man movement than, say, in-season? Aren't we probably scouring the waiver wire to see if there's anyone we like over Mike Baxter as a LH-OFer? Didn't Sandy say yesterday he wasn't comfortable with our bench? Don't you think there are other teams out there thinking the same thing?

I think another thing lost in this is the attractiveness of 40 man guys who have OPTIONS. We think of times where Nick Evans or Pat Misch or Nelson Figueroa cleared despite us freaking out over the possibility, and a big reason why was they were out of options, and teams weren't necessarily ready carry those guys on a 25man roster. But stashing someone on a 40 man and optioning them is a whole different thing altogether. This is how we grabbed Acosta a few years ago, despite there not being an immediate big league need. Just grab a guy for depth and option him.

And the real issue here isn't that, say, a move for Baxter is needed. Its that they are apparently discussing making moves for guys like Vin Rottino and Daniel Herrera, who would be needed for, apparently, something like 3-5 games. And in Herrera's case, he's being chosen not because they believe him to be the best candidate to fill in, but because they apparently believe him to be the most "disposable". Just seems odd to me. Vin Rottino certainly hasn't opened anybody's eyes, and if its down to the wire whether Torres is ready or not, how much playing time are you really carrying Rottino for?? Josh Satin couldn't give you the same value in the, maybe, 5 ABs if Torres misses 15 days?

I dunno, just seems odd. I guess trust that the FO knows what its doing, but they obviously deemed a lot of the guys they would now cut to be more valuable than Dan Herrera and Mike Baxter just a few weeks/months ago when they cut those 2 guys from the 40 man roster instead of the others - so when were they wrong? Then or now? For our sake, hopefully then.

China,
I pretty much agree with you in that none of the projected "losses" have much of a shot in coming back to haunt us. I'm as hard on the FO as it gets but so far they haven't lost anyone who has come back to haunt us. It's early but it's unlikely a Nick Evans or Fernando haunts us in the future. On the flip side... I'm not sure I understand the value of going with a Vinnie Rottino over throwing Satin or Lutz out there and hoping for the best. At least with those 2 there is SOME chance they can be valuable bench players for cheap for more than 1 year. Rottino is a bad baseball player, is old and has been awful all spring in the OF.

Maybe we're we're all ignoring the obvious truth here: Sandy has a bias in favor of Italians.

Josh Edgin will not make the team, but a club official said that the lefty reliever “had opened a lot of eyes around here, and we could see him again.”

Caught this in Martino's article. I guess it's not really anything new since Rubin has been saying it'll be Herrera for days with Edgin going to the upper-minors, but:

Batista makes the team!