Where for art thou, free agents...and trade buddies?

 OK, we have a short spring training and we are not making much headway.

Maybe the smart money lets guys play a few games or waits until the end of ST to see if players are healthy.   I can buy that...I guess, if we are gong to make a trade.

So, as free agent hitter options fly off the board I get it.   We are going to have to make a trade for an outfielder.  Amed Rosario is a good hitter for a SS but would be a below average hitter for a left fielder, a position where you normally want a power hitter.  Josh Naylor, on his best day, is not a right fielder and he is still recovering from last year's bad njury.  I am not sure, at this point, if Naylor is more than a pinch hitter/5th outfielder at this point.  On the other hand, Bradley Zmmer is the perfect 4th outfielder, in my opinion, but nothing more.   So as it doesn't appear that we will even sign a mediocre FA outfielder we have to make a trade and that trade should be for a powerhitting right fielder.

Enter Juan Soto.

But even if that trade can be made without totally gutting our farm system (the Matt Olson trade is NOT a good sign) we still need to do something about the bullpen.

I know we use the "C" word a lot with this team, and I don't mean Cleveland.  But when you see relief pitcher, good and mediocre, healthy and injured, go off the board with one year deals and minor league invites, you have to ask yourself if it is status quo or worse this year with the Guardians bullpen.  

Again, conventional wisdom says that one inning relievers may be a luxury during the early season and we have enough of them anyway.   So maybe we are looking for tandem guys and Eli Morgan, Logan Allen and Cody Morris may be exactly what we need or throwing guys out there like Konnor Pilkington or even Payton Battenfield.   But, at some point, we are going to back to playing normal baseball and we need two veteran righties and a veteran lefty, none of whom we have in camp right now.  

So, each day we proceed in camp I get more and more nervous that Paul Dolan, Mr C word, is planning to take the revenue sharing money and run or maybe just say "F" it and use that money to extend Ramirez, and Biieber and not to improve this team.  

I hope not but, right now, we could be looking at a very young, very cheap roster.   Not that this would be a problem to me but I can't imagine mentally that a guy like Francona could mentally last the whole season with a team in cheap mode.

So  I hope something big is happening.  I hope it involves Juan Soto and maybe Stephen Strasburg and I hope it doesn't totally gut our farm system.  And I hope we get some quality relievers who won't turn quality starts into gut-wrenching losses.

Take your time Guardians and do it right.  No pressure.  Tick.  Tick.  Tick.