Soriano to Dodgers? Why stop there?

Ken Rosenthal over at FOX Sports will have Dodger pundits’ tongues a-blogging with his news that the Boys in Blue are seeing red — the color of the uniform Alfonso Soriano is wearing on the Nationals. “Dodgers eye Soriano; lots of eyes on Crawford”. Check out Soriano’s stats at the moment:

• Tied for 1st in NL with 76 hits.
• 4th in runs with 48.
• Tied for 6th in RBI with 46.
• Two HR behind the suddenly injured Pujols for 2nd place.
• 14 for 21 in stolen bases.
• .310 avg, 1.006 OPS.

From all accounts he is a trooper despite the I’m-not-an-outfielder stuff during the off season.

However, we need some pitching more than we need him or Carl Crawford, the other most-wanted outfielder of the story. A fact that Rosenthal points out:

…the Dodgers, despite the emergences of [Matt] Kemp and fellow rookie Andre Ethier, continue to search for more established outfield help — they have been perhaps the most aggressive team pursuing Nationals left fielder Alfonso Soriano.

Still, hitters are in fairly abundant supply, and the Dodgers’ greater priority ultimately might be a starting pitcher. They lead the NL in rotation ERA, but that’s mostly due to the performances of right-handers Derek Lowe and Brad Penny.

But don’t the Nationals have a pitcher that we could use? One whose name has been bandied about by Dodger forum denizens, particularly after his performance against us earlier this year — Liván Hernández.

So what would it take to get Soriano and Hernández? How “aggressive” would we have to be? Also, do we dare give up any good prospects for a three-month rental player, no matter how good of a batter he is? Could we sign him in the off-season?

Greg Maddux’s name is still out there, too.

Pitching help is a must, but as Ned Colletti has shown so far in his tenure as GM, he is loathe to give up the whole farm for some quick-fixing. Whatever happens, things sure are getting interesting in Dodger land.