Now that the Nats have aquired Denard Span, MLB trade rumors wonders if the Nats might prefer Adam LaRoche at 1st and consider Michael Morse expendable. What do you all think it would take to get him here? A big bat, could play 1st/RF/DH and is a year removed from a 3 war season.

Going in to age 31 season, marginal improvement over Moreland, making $4M+, and coming off a poor year? I hope it doesn't take much and I hope we offer even less.

LaRoche would be better than Moreland and that's what I'd like to see for us. Then put a package of Moreland and specs for Shields.

The Nationals most likely do not have use for Morse if they re-sign LaRoche. Whichever one of them isn't their 1B next year, we should be looking into either signing or trading for him. Either of them would likely be a bit of an upgrade over Moreland, or (for Morse) at least platoonable over Young. Mitch probably isn't an ideal COF but if he's still around they could probably make it work. I believe Morse only has one year of control left, and he's coming off a down season (partially because of injury) so it probably wouldn't take too much to get him.

Obviously a pitcher and catcher are of the most importance overall this offseason, but I think looking at 1B is probably tertiary after those. I hope the Rangers get in on this action.

Laroche and the Nats are still "Distant" in terms of the contract. So I would like to see the Rangers make a hard play after him before looking at other options. Then as roy said make a Moreland package for Sheilds and I think a lot of us would be happy fans heading into the 2013, assuming one or two more minor moves are accomplished.

Michael Morse is cheap. Adam LaRoche is going to want 3-4 years @ $10M-$13M AAV. It makes more sense for the Nationals to let LaRoche walk and reassess their 1B situation next year. Right now it looks like WSH is going to plug in Morse at 1B, and roll with Werth/Span/Harper in the OF.

I'm not interested in LaRoche at the contract I'm expecting him to pull down. Mitch Moreland and Mike Olt making league minimum interests me more.

Until it's official that Zach Greinke is not coming here, the main funds need to be allocated in that direction.

Well, if all we can afford is Greinke and nothing else I'm not sure how competitive we can be.

Exactly, Roy.

Point being, we'll have to trade someone if we want to improve on what we put out there last year. We'll need to shave some salary from our books by acquiring players via trade.

If we acquire Greinke, I trust our FO can tool the Kx to be slightly backloaded (mostly to avoid breaking the bank before Young is off the books). I think the Rangers can either get LaRoche/ Greinke or Napoli/ Greinke. In either situation, I'd look for Murphy/ Moreland to be traded for BP help.

I'm going to make some no-so-illogical assumption here: We keep Elvis because he's still under a team friendly Kx and Kinsler goes to LF because he's coming off a year and a Kx which makes him not very tradable.

It seems, to me at least, since no Justin Upton deal has been done and the FO doesn't seem keen on shipping out Jurickson Andrus, they want to platoon Martin/ Gentry in CF. After all, they paid a pretty penny for Martin... they paid that pretty penny for him to play in the majors, not Round Rock.

If they don't sign Greinke, look for them to fortify BP with Koji, order with LaRoche and Napoli. #GMDreamMode

I agree with Eric in that most of the money should be set aside for a run at Grienke...that being said, Moorse will not cost us much and if we loose Josh and Nap, we'll need someone that could possible make up for losing all those power numbers. Moorse is a good hitter and has Nelson Cruz type power...I could see him hitting 25-30 HRs in Arlington.

But like Eric said, the NATS would most likely keep Moorse and let LaRoche walk because of the huge difference in cost. Still it's worth a look.

Nomp, I'm disappointed in your #GMDreamMode.

Think of it like this: If we sign Greinke, we're basically going to force ourselves into shedding Elvis Andrus and then some. If we can do that and acquire Justin Upton at the same time, the math seems elementary to me. Fortify the outfield, fortify the middle of the lineup, PROFIT.

Look, if we added David Murphy with Elvis Andrus, that $6M + Elvis's $4.5M will pay for Justin Upton's $9.75M figure in 2013. Signing Zach Greinke isn't the end-all of the offseason. It's the start of the dominoes dropping.

If we somehow signed Greinke, we would be backloading his deal to some degree, even if that means paying between $16M and $18M in 2013. That would give us enough money to sign a bullpen arm or two, plus give us a cheap catcher. If you're giving me the option of going with Greinke/Upton vs. Greinke/Napoli vs. Grinke/LaRoche, I'm going with the former, and by a landslide.

I don't see what the hoopla is about when it comes to LaRoche @ 3/36 or Napoli @ 3/36. Justin Upton is going to produce a ton more than those two over the next three years.

You may be right about Upton vs. Napoli or LaRoche but who produces what Hamilton leaves behind. If we lose Hamilton I think it'll take 2 bats to replace him. JMO

If you get LaRoche to hit 20-30 HR's at 1B and Martin to hit 10, you've replaced his production. Better yet, if you can get Kinsler to have a better season and just a dash of power (5-8 HR) from Profar, you've exceeded what Hamilton produced.

I'd be happy with a 2,3,4 of Upton, Beltre, LaRoche.

Oops, meant 3,4,5

I would love that too, but I think I'd love Greinke more. At least, more than one of them, if not both. Pitching, pitching, pitching.

looks like the Nats are actively shopping Micheal Morse, this should be interesting.

See if you can get Rizzo to take a sick day, and while he's out, get one of his assistants to take Borbon and a bucket of baseballs for Morse.