Odds and Ends From Wednesday in Indy

INDIANAPOLIS -- Wednesday afternoon at the annual Winter Meetings, the eight managers who had not yet given an interview session took the podium to field questions for a half-hour from in-house media. Eighteen others had already been there on the previous two days -- we posted about these sessions for both Monday and Tuesday -- and Joe Girardi, Joe Torre, Ron Gardenhire and Charlie Manuel were not present.

• Even if the Rockies let Jason Marquis walk -- which they probably will, though it's been reported they are open to bringing him back -- they are incredibly wealthy with starting pitching. Manager Jim Tracy discussed a strong five-man rotation of Ubaldo Jimenez, Jeff Francis, Aaron Cook, Jorge de la Rosa and Jason Hammel, but also mentioned the options they have in Esmil Rogers, Jhoulys Chacin, Samuel Deduno and Greg Smith. Smith in particular seemed to excite Tracy, in terms of how he'll come back healthy in 2010. Remember, the 24-year-old left-hander had a 4.16 ERA in 190 1/3 innings for Oakland in 2008. Simply put, there is absolutely no need to spend the money they'll have to in order to retain Marquis.

• Brad Hawpe started the season on fire and tailed off the rest of the way. His OPS through May was over 1.000, but he hit just .240 after the All-Star break (compared to .320 before). Still, despite the emergence of Dexter Fowler, Seth Smith and Carlos Gonzalez, Tracy has faith in Hawpe.

"If we had to play a game tomorrow, he'd be hitting fifth," Tracy insisted. "You don't make All-Star teams, and you don't do the things that Brad Hawpe has done over the course of his career by being in a slump your entire year."

"Maybe I played him too much," the Rockies' skipper said. "Maybe I played him into the ground. So shame on me if that's one of the reasons why he went down some in the manner in which he did post-All-Star break."

•I'm sure Pirates fans will believe it when they see it, but manager John Russell specifically said, "the mass exodus is over."

"We feel like we have the group we are going to move forward with, and we expect these guys to win more games," he added.

• For now, it sounds like the Pirates will keep Andrew McCutchen in the leadoff slot with Akinori Iwamura hitting second. Russell said he could eventually see moving McCutchen down to the three-hole and using Iwamura at the top, but for now, they'll stick with the young speedster atop the order.

"I think we might let [McCutchen] get his feet wet longer before we make some bold moves," Russell said.

McCutchen, 23, had a .365 on-base percentage with 26 doubles, nine triples, 12 home runs and 22 stolen bases during his 108-game rookie year in 2009.

• Trey Hillman loves the acquisition the Royals made for Chris Getz and Josh Fields, but he still believes Alex Gordon is their starting third baseman. Fields sounds like he'll get time at third to spell Gordon, but also in left field and at DH. Hillman plans on having Billy Butler play first base nearly every day and that he trusts Butler will become a pretty solid major league defender at first. He pointed to the progress made at the big league level by Kendry Morales of the Angels and says Butler puts in the same amount of work on his defense.

• Before the Marlins traded Matt Lindstrom (he was shipped to the Astros), Florida manager Fredi Gonzalez told the media Leo Nunez was set to the be the closer anyway.

• If the Marlins do trade Dan Uggla -- as has been a pretty hot rumor -- they are set to move Emilio Bonifacio to second base, which is his natural position. "Bonny" as his manager calls him, started the 2009 season on fire but quickly tailed off. He ended with a pretty brutal .611 OPS, but he did manage to steal 21 bases. Age (he was only 24) and inexperience were definitely factors, but Gonzalez also thinks fielding out of position had something to do with Bonifacio's offensive inadequacies.

"Last year we asked him to play third base. In the Major League level, never done it before. I think it's tough to judge a guy that way," Gonzalez admitted.

"It's hard enough to play in the Major Leagues and then play in a position you've never played," he went on. "Now you put him in a position at second base or shortstop, and he's more comfortable and there's less pressure, I think you may see a better offensive player."

• Blue Jays manager Cito Gaston pretty emphatically stated the only person distracted by the Roy Halladay trade talks is Halladay himself -- meaning it doesn't effect the team one bit to have the constant rumors swirling around their ace. And if it really bothered Halladay, it didn't show much. His ERA (2.79) was nearly the exact same as the previous season (2.78) when he wasn't involved in trade rumors. He also tied a career high in complete games and set career highs in shutouts and strikeouts.

On the other hand, will he underperform if he's disappointed due to not being traded? Halladay's worst month of 2009 was easily August -- immediately after the trade deadline passed.

• Outside of Halladay, Gaston couldn't even offer a hint of what Toronto's rotation will look like, due to injury issues and a clogged up group of young arms. He did say Ricky Romero would be in there, but after that, the Jays have a large group of unknowns (like Scott Richmond, Brett Cecil, Dustin McGowan, Shaun Marcum, David Purcey, Mark Rzepczynski, Brian Tallet and Jesse Litsch) due to either health, inconsistency or inexperience.

• If the Padres don't trade Adrian Gonzalez, skipper Bud Black is comfortable leaving Kyle Blanks out in left field for the long haul.

"If you watch Kyle play, you realize he has the foot speed, he has the hands," Black said. "Does he look like a prototypical outfielder? No. But you know, like I said, he's got good hands, his feet work well, and instinctually he's fine getting jumps and reads. Those will improve."

Black also noted what a thunderous middle of the order Gonzalez and Blanks would be back-to-back. And he's right. We know the power Gonzalez has, but the 22-year-old Blanks displayed prodigious power in his rookie year, clubbing 10 home runs in 148 at-bats and sporting an .868 OPS. At 6-foot-6 and 285 pounds, there's more where that came from.

And, by the way, Black does anticipate entering 2010 with Gonzalez on the Padres.

• Jim Leyland and Mike Scioscia were vocally critical of how long the postseason runs. Leyland said it was "ridiculous" that the World Series was being played in November and Scioscia went after the unnecessary off days during the playoff series. Scioscia's best example was the fact that there was a day off between Games 4 and 5 of the ALCS, even though both of those games were played in Los Angeles. There were other examples across the league from the past several playoff seasons.

"All that just breaks the continuity of what our sport is about," Scioscia said. "It's going out there and getting after it every day, the depth of a team becomes much more important when the template is like what we're trying to get it to as opposed to what it is now."

• More questions on replay expansion and, again, most were against changing it. Scioscia and Leyland did offer up interesting issues, however. Scioscia believes they should use replay on fair-foul calls in the field of play -- for now they can only use replay on fair-foul calls in the matter of home runs -- because sometimes the umpires are forced to dive out of the way of line drives and could be missing a good view of the baseball.

As for Leyland, he thinks those "K-Zone" boxes on TV should be outlawed by baseball. He offered up this doozy of a quote, with which I whole-heartedly agree:

"It's no good. I'm not sure the angles are always right, and all it does is put the umpire under, in my opinion, unnecessary pressure. You see one miss, one that far off the plate, he's embarrassed and they make a big deal about it. Why? I think it puts him under unnecessary pressure. I think when you look at it and somebody says, well, gee, that one missed the box by that far (holding two fingers about an inch apart), well, who in this room, including myself at 21 years of age, could necessarily call a 97 mile an hour pitch that missed by that far? That's bull****, I can tell you that right now. There's nobody that good. So I think that there's got to be some margin for error there, and I think it puts them under undue pressure, and I think they should do away with that. That's one thing I would recommend. I just don't think it's good. I think most people can tell without looking at that if there was a ridiculous pitch. Most people really can't give you -- when somebody says -- if one of my hitters comes back and says, 'that was that far outside (holding two fingers about an inch apart),' I tell them, you're totally full of s***. And if it was (only) that far outside, you should have hit it. If it was that far (holds arms about a foot apart), I'll give it to you, but if it was (only) that far outside, you should have hit it."

• With Chone Figgins having departed to Seattle, it appears the path is clear for Brandon Wood to finally get a shot at the everyday lineup for the Angels, but Scioscia would not commit to that decision yet. Wood is going to have to earn the job in Spring Training. It did sound like he'll have every opportunity to win the job, though, and Scioscia called Wood "very, very talented."

Wood is a .195 career hitter in the majors, but he's only had 224 at-bats scattered over the course of three seasons when he's been shuttling back and forth between the big leagues and Triple-A. His biggest problem? He's struck out 74 times while walking just seven.

Still, he'll only be 25 this season and he's torn up minor league pitching for years. He had 22 home runs and 72 RBI in 99 Triple-A games last year after hitting 31 home runs in 103 Triple-A games in 2008. The potential is there, so it's now time for the Angels to find a way to channel it out of him for the big club.

The other options for the Angels would be Maicer Izturis, someone from outside the organization or a long-shot candidate like Freddy Sandoval or Matt Brown.