When I look at all of the starting pitchers who are available for trade I can't help but think that is the best way for us to get a good starting pitcher that we want for our rotation. Its no secret we won't bother trying to sign Lester, Schertzer, or Shields. We probably wont go after Santana either since there are not many options on the open market in his tier of talent so he will likely cost more than he should.

But there are lots of starting pitchers who are on the trade market who are available at the right price. Oakland has said they will listen on Kazmir, Bluejays are open to trading Buerhle, Cincinnati has 4 decent to good starters who are 1 year from FA so they are open to trading one of them, Mets have 7 starting pitchers possibly 8 and they need a SS. So does Oakland. We have 2 of them plus a few MI prospects too. There are more options too these are the ones I can remember. The reason there are so many starting pitchers available is because next offseason there will be lots of starting pitchers hitting free agency. Before I go into who is available in freeagency after the 2015 season Let me ask you does it make more sense to trade Escobar and Pinto (who the organization is down on) and a reliever like Deunsing or one of our numerous prospects for a starter costing around 8 to 10 million for a 1 year contract or pay a starter 40-60 million over 3-4 seasons. In terms of dollars and risk which makes more sense to you and what are some of your trade proposals? also if you are concerned because the starter is a free agent after the season look at who is a free agent after next season. Surely we can get a new starter if we need one.

Here is the list from MLBtraderumors.com of who is on track for free agency next offseason.

Clay Buchholz (31) – $13MM club option with a $245K buyout

Mark Buehrle (37)

Trevor Cahill (28) – $13MM club option with a $300K buyout

Jhoulys Chacin (28)

Wei-Yin Chen (30)

Bartolo Colon (43)

Johnny Cueto (30)

Ross Detwiler (30)

R.A. Dickey (41) – $12MM club option with a $1MM buyout

Marco Estrada (32)

Doug Fister (32)

Yovani Gallardo (30)

Jaime Garcia (29) – $11.5MM club option with a $500K buyout

Jeremy Guthrie (37) – $10MM mutual option with a $3.2MM buyout

J.A. Happ (33)

Dan Haren (35)

Tim Hudson (40)

Hisashi Iwakuma (35)

Scott Kazmir (32)

Ian Kennedy (31)

John Lackey (37)

Mat Latos (28)

Mike Leake (28)

Tim Lincecum (32)

Kyle Lohse (37)

Corey Luebke (31) – $7.5MM club option with a $1.75MM buyout

Kris Medlen (30)

Bud Norris (31)

Ross Ohlendorf (33)

Mike Pelfrey (32)

Rick Porcello (27)

David Price (30)

Ricky Romero (31) – $13.1MM club option with a $600K buyout

Jeff Samardzija (31)

Alfredo Simon (35)

Jerome Williams (34)

Jordan Zimmermann (30)