While I work on a longer piece about the Marlins' offseason moves to date, I thought I'd cruise by the transactions page to see if any interesting patterns were emerging from the chaos.

- The Milton Bradley trade I won't comment on, except to point out that it somewhat ironically looks like exactly the sort of trade poor DePo got raked over the coals for making -- an established major leaguer in exchange for a Double-A prospect with roughly the same career timetable as the other jewels of the Dodger system. Ken and Jon have the A's and Dodgers angles ably covered otherwise.

- It's nice to see Nationals permanently-temporary GM Jim Bowden turning over a new leaf. Instead of acquiring every toolsy, skill-deficient outfielder he can find, he's now acquiring toolsy, skill-deficient players at other positions in order to convert them into outfielders. The cassandras who looked at Alfonso Soriano and cried "Juan Samuel! Juan Samuel!" when he first came up must be feeling a little better about themselves right about now.

Bowden gave up too much for Soriano of course; even if you're of the opinion that Soriano's a better offensive player than Brad Wilkerson, he'll not so much better as to make up for what he loses in defense, plus the change the Nets included in the deal (Terrmel Sledge, a useful fourth outfielder, and Washington's top healthy pitching prospect) to get it done. But Bowden's never been afraid to trade away both quantity and quality in exchange for marquee value.

The weirder roster news out of DC is Bowden's sudden fetish for backup catchers. He added no less than five of them to the system on Tuesday: nominal catcher/utility hitter Robert Fick, signed to a one year deal; and Mike DiFelice, Alberto Castillo, Wiki Gonzalez and former Marlins organizational soldier Brandon Harper, all signed to minor league deals, presumably with spring NRIs attached.

Between them DiFelice, Castillo and Gonzalez have played for 386 different professional baseball clubs (or thereabouts). Presumably, other than Fick, they're all fighting for the same job in spring training too, that of caddying for Brian Schneider -- MLB is missing a golden opportunity for some good publicity if they don't turn that titanic struggle into a reality TV show. "Meet Joe Backstop", perhaps? "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire" is already taken unfortunately, although it would also be a bit inaccurate since last season's winner, Gary Bennett, is only making $800,000 with the Cardinals in 2006.

- Another team stockpiling catchers plays just down the turnpike in Baltimore. The O's inked Ramon Hernandez to a four-year contract, disgruntling their previous free agent catcher signing Javy Lopez, who's still got one year left on his deal. I'm not sure what Javy's problem is here -- regular DHing would seem to be a good way to stay healthier, put up decent numbers and sign another big contract -- unless he was just feeling left out because most of the other big-name Oriole hitters were expressing their displeasure with Hernandez's inability to pitch.

- A depressingly uninteresting pattern is the money being thrown at left-handed middle relievers. Let's not even get into whether they're worth multi-million dollar contracts; instead, let's pre-suppose that the ability to get out left-handed sluggers in crucial situations is indeed a priceless talent, and see who got ripped off the worst anyway.

The Cubs will pay Scott Eyre $11 million over two years, primarily to get out the likes of Jim Edmonds (the biggest left-handed threat in their division). Lefties put up a .182/.277/.242 line against Eyre last year; a somewhat less friendly .200/.241/.390 against him in 2004; and hit .219/.280/.271 off him in 2003. That's a pretty solid track record for a specialist, and if he can get Edmonds out in a September nailbiter to put the Cubs in the playoffs, I doubt any Cubs fan will begrudge him his salary.

The Cards will pay Ricardo Rincon $2.9 million over two years, primarily to get out... uhh... Adam Dunn? Prince Fielder? Barry Bonds in the NLCS? The NL Central is surprisingly light in left-handed power. At any rate, lefties hit .250/.316/.398 off Rincon in '05, .200/.247/.278 off him in '04, and .200/.267/.275 off him in '03. If 2005 was a blip and not a trend, the Cards made out well here, comparatively speaking. Well, compared to Eyre anyway.

The Nationals will pay Joey Eischen $1.3 million for one year, primarily to get out guys like Carlos Delgado and Ryan Howard. Lefties hit Eischen at .250/.325/.375, .167/.310/.333, and .255/.305/.429 clips over the last three seasons. Maybe it's a good thing Frank Robinson has a reputation for creative use of his bullpen.

So which team's the loser? All three. The Angels went out and got JC Romero (heading in the second year of a two-year, $1 million contract, with a club option for a third), who held lefties to .198/.308/.267, .261/.341/.351 and .214/.333/.291 marks over the last three seasons, in exchange for a speedy Low-A second basemen they didn't need -- a prospect comparable to the draft picks the Cubs and Cards will lose (Eischen was a re-sign by the Nats). Walks aside, Romero is just as adept at not allowing lefties to get big hits as Eyre or Rincon, and the Angels -- who face the likes of Eric Chavez and Mark Teixeira on a regular basis -- probably needed a LOOGY-type more than the Cubs, Cards or Nats did. Paying him a fraction of what the older guys will make is just a bonus.

The moral of the story, as always, is that nothing puts the 'fun' in 'fungible' like free agent lefty relievers.