It’s been a slow week or so for the Dodgers and most every other team in baseball because of the holiday break, since so many executives are out of the office and off with their families. That’s going to change after the new year, perhaps significantly. Even though from all the noise it seems like the Dodgers may have completely remade their roster, all they’ve actually done is re-sign Brandon League and import Zack Greinke, Hyun-jin Ryu, & Skip Schumaker.

Those four moves probably represent the bulk of the offseason spending in dollar figures, but there’s enough left to do that the winter is arguably less than half over when it comes to transactions. It’s easy to see five or six more moves coming in the next few weeks. Let’s go down the list:

1) and 2). Trade two starting pitchers, likely Chris Capuano & Aaron Harang.

We’ve been talking about this for so long that it’s barely even worth going back over again at this point. There’s a 100% chance that at least one is moved, and probably a 90% chance that both go. I’m sure the Dodgers would be happy to be rid of Ted Lilly too, but his age, contract, & injury history probably make him untradeable. With reasonable contracts and decent 2012s in their pockets, both Capuano & Harang have some amount of value, and one or the other is included in just about every Andre Ethier trade rumor I hear, both publicly and privately. No, I don’t know where they’ll end up. But it’ll be somewhere that’s not Los Angeles, clearly.

3) Add a veteran reliever.

This is another thing we’ve been hearing about for a while, and I know it’s unpopular with many because the Dodgers do have a good core of young arms and already spent big on League. Still, it’s clear that the team has interest in upgrading and so no one should be surprised when they make at least one more move here.

That might be a lefty reliever, which I’m fine with even though Scott Elbert & Paco Rodriguez have their share of fans. That said, between the two of them they have fewer than 100 career innings, and Elbert is coming off elbow surgery. It’s hardly the worst thing in the world to build up some depth there, and I have no problem with the incredibly raw Rodriguez starting his year in the minors. Earlier in the winter we heard about Matt Thornton as being a possibility; now I’m starting to hear a bit more from multiple places about potential Dodger interest in free agent lefty J.P. Howell, a California native who is married to a USC grad and who has been with Tampa since 2006.

It could be a righty too, since we know the Dodgers were in on Joel Hanrahan before he was traded to Boston. One other name on the Dodger radar to either be excited for or terrified about, depending on your outlook: Rafael Soriano, who has been a very effective reliever for a long time, but who won’t come cheaply and who would require the loss of a first round pick.

4) Reduce the glut of redundant bench players.

Jerry Hairston & Schumaker are obviously going to be on the roster, and between them they can cover every non-catcher position except for first base. I suppose I’m stretching a bit to say that Hairston can really play shortstop, but with Luis Cruz & Dee Gordon both options if anything happens to Hanley Ramirez, it doesn’t really matter.

That makes both Nick Punto & Juan Uribe somewhat obsolete, because neither brings skills that aren’t already covered on the roster. (Other than diving head-first, but I’m guessing Schumaker would probably do in a pinch.) We heard a few weeks ago that the team was attempting to trade both, and I believe that’s still the case — one or both should be gone in the near future. Punto will probably manage to bring back at least a little something; Uribe’s probably just going to have to be jettisoned.

5) Add a backup first baseman and 6) a righty outfielder.

These could easily be the same player, but then again, perhaps not. Right now the roster doesn’t have a single player who can cover first base, and while Adrian Gonzalez is durable and plays every day, you can’t assume that he’s never going to get banged up or ever get ejected. While we’d all like to see Mike Morse come in to be a righty power option who can play LF / RF / 1B, that’s not going to happen unless Adam LaRoche returns to Washington first. Otherwise, this is going to have to be filled via trade, because the only righty free agents remaining who can play first base are Carlos Lee, who won’t come to Los Angeles, and Juan Rivera, who won’t be invited back.

The options there are just beyond sparse, and they’re tough to look at; one under-the-radar name I’ll throw out — completely my own speculation — is soon-to-be 30-year-old righty Steve Pearce, who bounced from Minnesota to the Yankees to the Orioles to the Astros back to the Yankees and then back again to the Orioles all in 2012 alone. To say that he’s dispensable is an understatement, but in parts of six big-league seasons he does have a pretty sizable platoon split, and he can play a little bit of outfield too.

In the outfield, well, frankly, I’m just terrified Ned Colletti is going to find a way to talk himself into Delmon Young.

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That’s potentially six moves right there — more if both Punto & Uribe go, and if Colletti does bring in a veteran catcher to battle Tim Federowicz in camp —  and that doesn’t even address the Ethier rumors that just won’t go away. I’ll say this: they’re real, and while I think it’s more likely than not that Ethier remains with the Dodgers, we can’t be sure until Michael Bourn lands somewhere else.

Stay tuned. January should be fun.

As we head get into August and the roster expansion of September 1 gets closer by the day, a fun annual game becomes “can [insert mediocre player here] hang on to his job long enough to make it to September, by which time roster limits aren’t an issue and it doesn’t make sense to DFA him?” Last year, we saw Dioner Navarro get the axe barely more than a week before the deadline; this year, that can be referred to as “the Juan Uribe & Adam Kennedy deathwatch.”

Yet while everyone thinks about that in terms of the 25-man active roster, this year’s constant stream of moves has made the 40-man roster all the more crowded, and that’s where players Uribe & Kennedy could find issues. Even with space-fillers like Ramon Troncoso, Michael Antonini, & Trent Oeltjen already having been dropped from the roster, the 40-man is tight, so tight that Chris Withrow is the only member of the roster with meaningful playing time this year who doesn’t already have major league experience. (Yasiel Puig is of course just getting going in Arizona, and Alfredo Silverio is out for the year due to injury.)

That’s what happens when injuries force unexpected moves to add reinforcements to the roster, like Luis Cruz & Elian Herrera, and when late-July trades add four 40-man players (Hanley Ramirez, Shane Victorino, Randy Choate, & Brandon League) while only removing two in Nathan Eovaldi & Josh Lindblom. As things stand, the Dodgers have one open spot on the 40-man roster, but potentially four recovering players on the 60-day DL who could be back before the end of the season – Rubby De La Rosa, Matt Guerrier, Ted Lilly, & Justin Sellers. (Todd Coffey won’t be back, and though I don’t believe Blake Hawksworth is officially out for the year yet, all indications are that he won’t make it back in time either.)

It might not stop there, either. If the Dodgers make a waiver move in August to reinforce the team – which I think we all agree they’ll do – that’s potentially one or two additional spots, assuming no current member of the 40-man is traded. And then if they want to promote Allen Webster, John Ely, or any other minor leaguer who doesn’t currently have a spot, that’s even more room they’ll need to clear.

So it’s not impossible to think that the Dodgers may want to add five to seven players who aren’t currently on the roster, and they currently have just one spot to play with. How is that going to work? Obviously, circumstances can change over the next few weeks as moves get made, players get injured, and so on. Here’s some thoughts on who might go:

1) Matt Angle.  Angle was a nice waiver claim for depth last winter, but he’s hitting .272/.357/.371 away from Albuquerque and his trademark speed (just 8 steals after 27 in each of his previous 5 seasons) has disappeared. 27 in September, he’s no longer a “prospect”, and with Victorino, Gwynn, & Herrera around, the Dodgers are well-covered in center should Matt Kemp‘s hamstring act up again.

2) Justin Sellers. I think we all like Sellers, but when it comes to “good defensive infielders who can’t really hit,” well, isn’t that what Cruz is doing? Remember, the beauty of the DFA is that it’s not necessarily the end of a player’s tenure with the organization – Oeltjen remains with the Isotopes – and it’s probably not likely that Sellers would get claimed. If he does, not a huge loss. (If not Sellers, then Cruz. Seems hard to see them both on the 40-man.)

3) Alfredo Silverio to 60-day disabled list. Silverio was injured in a car accident last winter and will not play in 2012, but the Dodgers have resisted putting him on the 60-day DL (and off the 40-man roster) because it would require him to be promoted to the bigs and start accumulating MLB service time. It makes sense to not want to do that, yet with Puig already eating up a roster spot that may not be used for a while, it may be unavoidable now.

4) Kennedy and/or Uribe. Speaking of middle infielders who carry no value whatsoever… I was impressed somewhat by the Dodger decision to jettison Bobby Abreu this week, because while it seemed clear that Victorino’s arrival spelled the end of a role for Abreu, it’s not usually been like Colletti to let go of a veteran like that. With Jerry Hairston now available for more infield time, Dee Gordon on his way back, Ramirez in the mix, and Cruz being decent, there’s barely room for either one of these guys, much less two. I’d like to say both will be gone, but I don’t want to get too optimistic here. I’m not sure which one will go, but I guarantee one will.

5) Rivera and/or James Loney. This assumes the Dodgers make an August move for a first baseman. I’m assuming they will. If they do, there’s no room for two backup first basemen who can’t hit. (I’ll admit here how unlikely this seems, but it also illustrates just how packed the roster is right now.)

That’s a way to clear five spots, and it still might not be enough. (If the Dodgers do get Cliff Lee or another starter, maybe Stephen Fife gets a nice “smell you later”.) You could, I suppose, make a case for Ivan De Jesus or Josh Wall, though I think it’s probably not all that likely.

It’s complicated, but it’s also fun to be in situation where some of the bottom-feeders may be about to be shown the door. Moves are going to get made, that’s for sure – who do you think gets gone?