Because he not only ain't pitching for the Blue anytime soon, he'll be part of a divisional rival's rotation.  Garland and the D-Backs have agreed to terms after some on-again, off-again banter.  Garland was on the Dodger radar, but talk has always seemed to swirl more around SoCal son (and former Ravine dweller) Randy Wolf, who may not get the cash and years he's seeking.  Spring training is fast approaching, so he, along with the Dodgers, will need to decide soon enough.

Garland's move to Arizona becomes even more interesting upon a report from MLB.com's Ken Gurnick that James McDonald will begin the season in the pen, a blueprint used in 2007 with Chad Billingsley.  That a team would hold off on putting an inexperienced hurler in the rotation is anything but unusual.  But McDonald had been penciled in -- mentally, if nothing else -- by many (including me) as a fourth or fifth starter.  If Young McDonald isn't in the mix, who will be, beyond Chad Billingsley, Hiroki Kuroda and Clayton Kershaw?  Jason Schmidt?  If that's the plan, I admire the brass' optimism, if not their realism.  Wolf?  Braden Looper?  Eric Stults?  An arm obtained via trade?  Jason Repko?  (He's inexperienced but the kids love him.)  Or will the "Bills, Part Deux" game plan run considerably shorter than the original version? 

Stay tuned.

AK

Scott Boras says Manny will be signed by someone before spring training.  Good to know ... but I was sort of working under that assumption anyway. The continuing Manny Watch! is especially interesting in light of Buster Olney's column this morning on ESPN.com regarding Adam Dunn and Bobby Abreu, two big names that could be forced to take one-year deals.  If those guys are reduced to a single season, there's absolutely no chance a team will give Manny a four-plus-option.  The door is wide open, and if a team was willing to step through, it would have happened by now. 

I'm very much looking forward to how Boras spins things when Manny eventually signs.  It seems we both misread the market coming into Hot Stove season, except he's a SuperAgent! and I write a blog. 

Meanwhile, if you're looking for a fun way to get a jump on the '09 season, I recommend hitting DodgerSims.  Cool fun with projections.

BK

"The Yankee Years," co-written by Joe Torre and longtime SI scribe Tom Verducci, will hit stands Feb. 3.  In those pages are details involving team-wide disdain for A-Rod and a strained relationship between Torre and the pinstripe brass that began long before the manager left town. Only excerpts have been made available but a media frenzy has ensued, particularly in New York, which is shocking since it's a journalistic base that tends not to jump all over items of a potentially sensational nature before every detail is known. 

And assuming it's not abundantly clear, yes, that description of Big Apple writers was indeed sarcastic.

Before I form an opinion of the book there are a few things I'd like to do ...

ESPN.com's Keith Law released his list of the top 100 prospects in baseball.  Given how many of their high-end talents have arrived at the big league level, it's not terribly shocking to see that the Blue aren't well represented.  With the natural cycles of restocking and trades made by a contending team, the cupboard isn't bare, but it's not overflowing in the way it was a few seasons back. 

One guy who is high on the prospect list?  Carlos Santana.  The same catcher traded away in the Casey Blake deal, added in with reliever Jon Meloan to encourage the Indians to pick up the remainder of Blake's salary.  He's listed as the third best catcher and the 13th best overall. 

It was asked at the time but is worth revisiting: Was $2 million in the bank a good use of Santana's value?

BK

I believe his one-year deal has incentive clauses for leaping tall buildings in a single bound and for refining next season's flu vaccine. 

BK

With the appealing rotation toppers off the market, perhaps it's time to concentrate on the other end.  And with that in mind, I present:

Braden Looper. Former reliever, now a decent enough (read: average to a little above) starter who threw 199 innings last season for St. Louis and could probably be had for a reasonable price.  Positives include: Better trends in his second year as a starter than his first (lower ERA, better K/BB ratio), 14 starts of seven or more innings in '08 including nine after the all-star break, a tendency not to singlehandedly lose games for his team (an appealing quality for a back-of-the-rotation guy), a VORP (24.6) that exceeds higher-profile names like Javier Vasquez, Justin Verlander, Brett Myers and Oliver Perez, and a funny name.  Negatives: Homer prone (tied for team lead in HR allowed last season), allowed 33 more hits in only 24 more innings from '07 to '08, tends not to singlehandedly win a lot of games for his team, and if memory serves, a really big head.  Literally.  Could be a problem for the equipment guys.

Put the package together and I'm sold.  He won't excite a lot of folks or provide a great postseason presence (should the need arise), but Looper would be better than the average fourth or fifth starter L.A. would be seeing across the league, and likely better than most alternatives when effectiveness and innings load are factored in.  That's worth a couple wins, I think.

BK

Nothing's been officially confirmed with a formal announcement, but word around the campfire has free agent Derek Lowe settling in Hotlanta as his next destination.  Reportedly, he'll be locked in through 2012 and compensated to the tune of 15 mil per.   Bobby Cox loved the "kid" after a meeting.  That's easy to believe, since Dodger fans generally loved them some D.Lowe.  Sir Sinkerball was among the more consistent Dodger hurlers during his time in L.A., and definitely the team's most durable (basically a lock for 200 innings).  What was also impressive about Lowe was a consistent habit of getting better as the season chugged along, whether last season, in 2006 or in 2005.

Really, about the only thing Dodger fans might not like about Lowe was his disinclination to appear excited about staying in L.A.  Yes, there was a statement about loving it in L.A. and an offer never coming from Team Colletti, but that feels rather after-the-fact, considering how many previous times he declined to express interest in returning.  The folks I've talked to, whether fellow writers or people with the organization (as recently as last Friday) also read his desire for a Blue follow-up as somewhere between lukewarm and nonexistent.  That's the explanation I'm buying, for what it's worth.

When last we saw lanky right-handed reliever Guillermo Mota in a Dodgers uniform, he was mowing down hitters with regularity as L.A.'s set-up guy.  ERA's right around 2.00, low BAAs, and so on and so forth.  Then Mota was shipped away, part of the blockbuster deal in '04 -- known locally as The Trade That Proved Paul DePodesta Was an Unfeeling Computer Geek and Made Him Dead Here -- that also sent Paul LoDuca and Juan Encarnacion to Florida in exchange for Brad Penny, Hee Sop Choi and Bill Murphy. 

Well, for those who still feel damaged from that trade (I was one of the only people I know who defended it at the time, if you're curious), today there can be some healing because Mota is back in Dodger Blue.  He agreed to a one-year deal that should be finalized today, pending a physical. The hope is that a homecoming of sorts will benefit all involved. The Dodgers are thin in the pen and need reinforcements, while Mota, who hasn't been the same guy since leaving L.A., needs a little shot in the arm, career-wise.  (Could be a poor choice of words for a guy who was suspended 50 games for performance enhancers in 2006.)  Given Cory Wade's emergence last season, I doubt Mota will be slotted for the eighth inning anymore, but he can still be a handy fellow to have around.

The move helps but doesn't solve L.A.'s pen questions heading into the season.  Often, the construction of a quality relief corps is a matter of assembling quantity and seeing what sticks.  Still plenty of time to finish that process.

BK

(photo: John Soo Hoo, Dodgers)

In what could be the best thing to happen to this particular day of the week since NBC broke up its vaunted Cosby Show to Family Ties to Cheers to Night Court (I admit, I was a fan.  I was young and needed the money ...) to Hill Street Blues "Must-See TV" lineup of the early/mid-80s, Trevor Hoffman's agent says the vaunted closer will make a decision about where he'll play in '09 sometime tomorrow. 

Personally, I'd like to see him land in L.A., given how reasonable the terms seem to be.  While he's not quite the Mr. Automatic of his prime, Hoffman is still a pretty effective closer, allows the team to continue grooming Jonathan Broxton for the role down the road (if that's the direction they'd like to go) and fills a need in the bullpen at a decent price.  Very few things about free agency offend me more than overpaying for closers. 

BK 

(photo: AP)

I prefer "For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)," if only for the 21-gun salute and the specificity (Have you rocked already?  Do you plan to rock at some point but maybe not for a little while?  Well, this song ain't for you, then.), but Dodgers fans could be getting plenty of "Hells Bells" in 2009.  The Blue have made a one-year offer with a club option to legendary closer Trevor Hoffman, who struggled early in 2008 but finished the season strong. 

If Hoffman accepts, he would be penciled in as the closer. 

In other news, the Blue have apparently made an offer to semi-journeyman lefty reliever Dennys Reyes, who has pitched effectively in Minnesota the last three seasons, two of which he was brutal on left-handed hitters.  He'd fill the vacancy left by Joe Beimel.  Additionally, they're interested in former Dodger Guillermo Mota, who hasn't quite been the same since his salad days in L.A. back in '03 and '04 but still did reasonably decent work in Milwaukee a year ago.

BK