During a drunken mid-day voyage to a little sportsbar in downtown Scottsdale, AZ to watch today's game, a few friends and I were discussing what we would do if we could just run the show for 5 minutes.  By our calculation, that would be enough time to eradicate some dead weight within the organization and get us on the correct path to again being a team that is worthy of being supported.

The changes that need to take place are wholesale, but do not seem very difficult to identify or perform.  We limited ourselves to only 2 moves that would best set the franchise in the right direction (independant of changing ownership) so we had to prioritize.  Everything else would just take the natural course decided by our wonderful ownership.  Here is what I came up with:

1.) DFA Oliver Perez - Ollie is worthless.  You know it.  I know it.  Scott Boras knows it deep down.  I think even Ollie realizes it at this point.  His refusal to accept a Minor League assignment while clearly not being able to pitch at the Major League level shows that not only is he a terrible pitcher, but he is also selfish.  We discussed what we would do in this same situation given the fact that riding a bus for 5 hours to check in to a Days Inn is not the most pleasant way to spend an afternoon.  We all said that we would accept the assignment and try to right the ship while giving the team the flexibility to bring up an arm that could potentially help.  While contractually he has the right to do this (and I don't begrudge him that), it is clearly best for Ollie and not the team.  When you are being paid $36 million, you expect a certain amount of buy in to the team concept from that individual and keeping him around really does send a poor message to the clubhouse.  Ollie clearly does not care if he hurts his teammates or the organization and is probably angling for a release to start anew.  Although it is a lot wasted money, the franchise should realize that it is already gone.  With the way Jerry has run the bullpen ragged, we need another big league arm.

Corresponding Move - I would let Gee finish out the season in Buffalo and bring him up in September for a cup of coffee.  Both Ramon Ortiz and Pat Misch are looking very good right now and could slot in to the rotation to give Tak a chance to solidify the bullpen.  At this point, I'd give Ortiz a shot and counter with Misch if he is ineffective.

2.) Fire Omar Minaya - Omar's shortcomings are clearly on display recently with the lack of roster depth or a minor league system to feed major league ready players to the big club.  His saving grace has been the ability to locate undervalued assets and turn them in to viable options on a decent team.  In short, this is something that a scout could pretty much do.  It takes a different breed to be able to run an organization and put together a complete roster and Omar has pretty much failed to make the necessary moves or identify potential shortcomings since 2007.  His inability to see the long view has hampered this organization and backed it in to a corner too many times over the past 3 seasons.  The team needs a General Manager who can develop the farm system with the limited assets allocated for it by ownership and has a clear plan for the future.

Corresponding Move - Since I only have about 30 seconds left in my ownership reign, we need to find a replacement that is not attached to some other team (so no wooing Jon Daniels or Andrew Friedman) and will actually take the job.  John Ricco has been too closely involved with the construction of this team to be a viable option to bring about long-term change, so he is out.  With a gun to my head, I go with Paul DePodesta and sign him to a 2-year deal to see what he can do.  He has been out of the game for a bit, so he'll probably jump at the chance with a short-term deal to prove himself.

There are obviously many more things that would need to be done to get this franchise moving in the right direction (DFA Cora and Frenchy, fire Jerry) but with only 2 moves, you have to go big and there is a chance (albeit a small one) that these moves would be performed by ownership after the above two items were completed.

I think it is an interesting discussion point and wonder what everyone would do if they had ONLY 2 moves that they could make while trusting that the rest would fall in to place.  I had a hard time believing that in those two moves, Jerry would survive, but taking the long-view, he is probably pretty far down on the list of issues facing this organization now that it has been pretty well determined that we are not contending this year.

If you had only 2 moves to make, what would you do?

I'm just praying he doesn't do anything stupid to give "Manuel in need of a Manual" any more options than he already has.

I would love a Starting Pitcher to purge Livan from the rotation (or at least, give Niese the chance to develop while getting the same results).

Who is out there than can help us?

Cliff Lee? Roy Oswalt? Carlos Lee?

I'm not finding a whole lot else out there, but hopefully when some teams fold tent for the season, there will be other options.