Odalis-Mania

Odalis Perez is the last solid pitcher on the free-agent market and, by all accounts, he's the main target of Seattle and the Nationals.

Reportedly, the Nats have offered $18 million over three years to him. The Mariners have offered slightly more money.

Perez is a close friend with Adrian Beltre, the Mariners newest big-ticket player, and he's been lobbying Perez to sign with the Ms.

With the Dodgers gumming up the Randy Johnson to NY trade, it wouldn't surprise me to see the Yankees get involved in the discussions. They've expressed a desire to get a left-handed pitcher in their rotation, and were openly flirting with the execrable Eric Milton earlier, so Odalis isn't out of the question. I can picture them looking at his playoff flame-outs against St. Louis and staying away, however. I can't imagine they'd get involved in the bidding, but with New York, you never know.

Odalis is a pretty extreme groundball pitcher. I'm going from memory here, but I think he threw roughly 60% groundballs. He doesn't walk may batters (roughly 2.5 per 9 innings). Perez doesn't go particularly deep into games, but with the strength of our bullpen, that shouldn't be a huge problem. He'll definitely give you 6-7 innings of quality pitching, which should be enough to win more often than not.