[language deleted --1992] Doug!! What a shame... You better pray to God that this young Rotation doesn't suck in 2013... We have the BEST offense in the NL and your going to waste it!! Looks like that offense will have to get us 6-8 runs every game!! Well, I guess when you spend 80-90% of your money on position players, generally refusing to let a young non-elite prospect see the field or trade expensive players away even when it may seem logical, you are going to have to hope the expensive guys you've got can do a good job, as there's no money left over for pitching. I agree that I'd like to see Melvin dig around to find Marcum or some other vet looking to regain value on a one-year deal. I don't think Melvin is shutting the door on all remaining options, but on the surface it looks goofy that Dempster was our all-in guy, and if that didn't work out we were going to spend the money on a couple of so-so relievers and hope for the best. Since I have more faith in Melvin than that, the next move would seem to be a trade of some sort. That either means trading prospects for a guy with 1-2 years of team control remaining, or our trading a vet for prospects. I hope we don't do the former, but as to the latter, recent events could open up the possibility of Melvin trading away Gomez or Hart. The Upton deal shows teams are willing to pay big money for slugging, good defense CFs, so that ups Gomez's value. The Choo trade shows that a player who could be called similar to Hart can bring a Top 10 prospect in trade. The Dempster signing gets Melvin's attention turned away from apparently the only FA he was interested in. We'll see where it goes from here. Yea I don't see Doug doing anything this Off-season. Should be fun battling for last place with the Cubs.