And, no, we couldn’t get him straight-up for one of our OFs.

I assume you were responding to my post suggesting we couldn’t trade one of our OFs alone and get Roberts in return. The O’s could maybe use a strong LF (Luke Scott and Lou Montanez could hold down the fort, but certainly one of our OFs would be an upgrade), but they’ve got a really strong RF in Markakis, and they just traded for Ryan Freel to help out Adam Jones in center, so it’d be hard to trade them Nady or Swisher, the only two they’d likely want, unless they intend to use Swish at 1st (another of their needs) or Scott and/or Jones off the bench.

But they’re also in-division, so they’d be extra reluctant to trade one of their best talents, if not their best, to someone they’ll play nine or so times a year and someone they’re depending on to lose so they can get into the postseason. Roberts is also a FA next year, so they wouldn’t get the draft picks in return, and they really are looking to build their organization.

It’s not a totally unreasonable prospect since we sort of match up, but I just don’t see it happening. Plus, as I said, we can’t use a 2B unless we trade away Cano, but then we’d also have to be sure we could re-sign Roberts because we don’t have anyone at all ready to step in at middle infield, and other than Roberts, the only other decent second-basemen on the market next fall will be Placido Polanco (age 34, high BA, no power, no speed) and Freddy Sanchez (age 32, same deal as Polanco but lower BA and less power and speed). Though Roberts will turn 32 during the 2009 postseason, so he’s not someone we’d want to commit more than 4 or 5 years to.

This is ugg

First, arod batted 2nd in 25 games in 2005 and 24 games in 2004.

Why on earth are you putting Cano 3rd? He doesnt get on base enough, there is tons of research demonstrating that batting order protection is a non factor, and where is Damon in all of this?

your best chance to hit a homer should always bat 4th no matter what.