Dodger 25-man roster?

Assuming the Juan Pierre deal is legit, which seems likely pending a physical With the Pierre deal official, here is the active Dodger roster as it stands right now. You will note a dearth of pitchers, only 9 at the moment, which will need to expand by 2 or 3. Couple of names missing from the official roster, who will be in the mix: IF Ramon Martinez, recently resigned, and OF Matt Kemp.

Pitchers

• SP Chad Billingsley
• RP Yhency Brazoban
• RP Jonathan Broxton
• SP/RP Mark Hendrickson
• SP Hong-Chih Kuo
• SP Derek Lowe
• SP Brad Penny
• RP Takashi Saito
• RP Brett Tomko

Catchers

• C Toby Hall
• C Russell Martin

Infielders

• 3B Wilson Betemit
• SS Rafael Furcal
• 1B Nomar Garciaparra
• 2B Jeff Kent
• 1B/OF James Loney
• IF Olmedo Saenz
• IF Wilson Valdez

Outfielders

• IF/OF Marlon Anderson
• OF Andre Ethier
• OF Juan Pierre
• OF Jason Repko
• OF Jayson Werth

Who will the other pitchers be? Among starters, Barry Zito would be awesome of course, but who knows if the money can be worked out, or if he even wants to come to LA. Jason Schmidt has been mentioned as a likely name, and while I still don’t know if I could get used to seeing him in a Dodger uniform after all those games against him and the Giants, he would continue the “Jason” theme of recent years. ;) Resigning Greg Maddux might happen, if the years/money can be worked out (and perhaps this is contingent on the Zito situation), and there’s youngsters coming along that might contribute more during the 2007 season. And heck, Jeff Weaver is available again. Ted Lilly has also been mentioned, who I’ve seen described as Barry Zito without the name; I would counter that the former’s full name — Theodore Roosevelt Lilly — is pretty dang awesome all by itself.

While a legitimate #1 starter is the biggest priority, relievers are still important, if a bit trickier to identify. Joe Beimel is reportedly a possible resigning despite letting the team down during the playoffs. And whither Eric Gagne?

What’s missing assuming pitching is handled? The big bat that Ned Colletti has been talking about since the off-season began. We just missed out on Alfonso Soriano, but likely had little chance with Aramis Ramirez. That leaves three names out there among the free agents, two of whom we certainly will not be considering (Barry Bonds and JD Drew), and the third (Carlos Lee) said he didn’t want to come to the west coast even before he was signed by Houston.

There’s always trades, and based on what Colletti said in comments about the Pierre situation on Monday, he might try to trade pitching for that big bat. Might we see Brad Penny (et al.?) moved for a guy who can hit 30 or 40 homers? Well, the Yankees need pitching. ;D In those comments, Ned also said they might be able to make up some of the homers with existing guys stepping up, so perhaps that big move won’t happen.

Can this team win? It’s way too early to predict anything, but anything is possible.