Jim Thome is a 40-year-old die hard with just about the prettiest OBP in all of baseball for a man making roughly as much as Jeff Mathis will make this season. He hasn't had a walk rate under 15% since 1994, and he cost the Minnesota Twins exactly $1.5M last season to be a part-time DH, where he delivered 25 HRs in only 340 plate appearances, for an outstanding 3.5 WAR.

Make no mistake: he's old, he throws out his back now and then, but he still wants to play, he's a good clubhouse guy, and he costs almost nothing.

Meanwhile, Mike Napoli is coming off a subpar year, and Scioscia isn't receptive to making him a full-time DH -- but the Napster absolutely crushes left-handed pitching, and that was no less the case in 2010. Thome is the perfect complement, as he murders right-handed pitching.

Just review this crazy shit:

Thome, 2010 v RHP: .305 avg .455 obp .698 slg (19 HRs in 246 PAs)

Napoli, 2010 v LHP: .305 avg .399 obp .567 slg (10 HRs in 163 PAs)

Feel that arithmetic? That's 29 HRs in 409 PAs -- roughly 60% of a season.

Obviously, something would have to be done with Bobby -- we might actually have to play him in the field, and hope Bourjos shades to his right -- but that's a pretty cheap gamble with in-house players, if the Angels were to do nothing else but sign Beltre.

I could live with this. Provided Thome could give us half a season of plate appearances, and Scioscia would allow Naps to DH one third of the year, it could be roughly the equivalent of us having signed Adam Dunn to DH for us.