Here Comes Kotchman

With Beltre headed off to Boston, the Mariners are setting up a trade that should help Boston avoid paying the luxury tax for their everg growing team salary. Reports are in that the Mariners will pickup firstbaseman Casey Kotchman for cash, a minor leaguer, and a major-league role player.

This also helps Boston ween down their roster a bit. If they were to keep Kotchman, that would leave them with 5 high profile players (Mike Lowell, Kevin Youlkiss, David Ortiz, Beltre and Kotchman) for 3 positions: Thirdbase, Firstbase and Designated Hitter. So, Boston looks to come out a winner for not only signing Beltre, but dealing Kotchman.

Now, Kotchamn has a lot of upsides. In 465 career games, he has only committed 8 errors, giving him a career fielding percentage of 99.8%. He's a potential gold glover for sure. He also has only struck out 166 times in 1674 total at bats, meaning he strikes out less than once every 10 at bats. He has power potential to some degree and he gets on base. So, he's a very solid player.

The only misgivings I have would be over who the Mariners plan to give up in the trade. Hopefully, the minor leaguer being sent is of no consequence, because while the organization is deep, we can't keep giving up our first and second round picks. Also, Jose Lopez and Mark Lowe have been thrown around in rumors, and they may be hard replace. Sure, Lopez doesn't have exceptional range as an infielder and his on base percentage isn't the greatest, but he's a righty that can hit for power in Safeco occasionally. Send him, and you either need to get a secondbaseman or move Figgins over and get a thirdbaseman. The Bullpen does have some depth now and could afford to lose Lowe to some degree, but I'd feel a lot more assured with Lowe in there to start the season.

But who knows? Maybe I'm just getting ahead of myself and the Mariners are planning on sending one of our utility players or back of the rotation starters. Either way, at least Kotchman appears to be reliable in the types of roles we will need him.