MLB's Newest Small Market

The Times has an article about how MLB's continued ownership of the Expos is going to force them to be run as a small market team for the short-term and Bowden's strategy for the winter.

Bowden, who has the reputation as an aggressive trader, is unlikely to emerge from the weeklong general managers meetings without making any deals. Yet that doesn't mean he won't be active this winter.

"We plan on making five offers to [free agents] before our 8 a.m. meetings [today]," he said.

Among the players Bowden covets are Cincinnati outfielders Adam Dunn or Austin Kearns. But Bowden's goal may not always be simply acquiring players through trades and free agency. Small-market teams must think about future deals — not ones for later this winter but for next summer — and having the players to make those deals.

"Let's say we need a starting pitcher," Bowden said. "If I can sign two starting pitchers as free agents, I may use a starting pitcher and this piece to go get another piece. You always have to be thinking that way. And sometimes you want to sign too many players so you have something to trade in July, when you can get the best players. That's the time to trade. So you have to have extra pieces."

Oh, that crazy JimBo. Thanks for planning for our July fire sale already! Maybe if you did your job instead of trying to sign scrubs like Batista to multi-year deals (Please tell me that that's Taveres' move) you wouldn't have to worry about fire sales in July.

Not to nitpick, but the article has two things that annoy me... Their continued insistence that Tony Batista was a fan favorite in Montreal--as if that has some special power of appeal to people--and the incorrect assertion that two calls were reversed in Game 7 of the ALCS. It was Game 6; I was there... and royally P'd off. (But what did I know, I was a quarter mile from the field!)