Nor will his predicament, as much as Pierre wants out.

The Dodgers discussed a Pierre-for-Luis Castillo deal with the Mets at the winter meetings, to no avail. A similar exchange of bad contracts with another club will be nearly impossible to pull off before opening day.

In a perfect world, the Dodgers would move Pierre for an expensive starting pitcher, someone like Rangers right-hander Kevin Millwood or Mariners lefty Jarrod Washburn.

Good luck.

The Rangers need innings from Millwood and Vicente Padilla until their younger pitchers develop, and Pierre is hardly atop their wish list. The Mariners already feature two other left-handed slap-hitting outfielders, Ichiro Suzuki and Endy Chavez.

Frankly, the Dodgers are not eager to trade Pierre; without him, their leading outfield reserve would be Jason Repko, an oft-injured, unproven player. The team, surprisingly enough, also could add a starting pitcher and another reliever without dumping Pierre's salary. The Dodgers' payroll, thanks to the deferred money in Ramirez's contract, is at a mere $90 million.

Everything, then, works against a trade.

Pierre says that Dodgers manager Joe Torre assured him that he would "not be lost in the shuffle," and those words probably are closer to the truth than Pierre realizes. Ramirez, Kemp and Ethier are not certain to stay healthy. Even last season, Pierre finished with 375 at-bats despite spending nearly a month on the disabled list with a kneeinjury.

Ramirez, who turns 37 on May 30, played 153 games last season, but 130 and 133 the two previous years. Kemp, who hits lefties much better than righties, could sit against tough right-handers. Ethier also will need occasional breaks, enabling Pierre to play center and Kemp to slide to right.

Pierre could increase his value both to the Dodgers and other clubs by improving in center; scouts say that he gets poor reads, leading to late jumps, and fails to charge balls hard enough to compensate for his weak arm. But really, Pierre did little to merit his loss of playing time.

The Dodgers signed him after they lost J.D. Drew and were desperate for an outfielder. Pierre batted .293 with 64 stolen bases in his first season. He wasn't the one who failed to identify that the team needed more power.

All Pierre wants is for the Dodgers to give him an "honest chance" to go somewhere else, but there's only so much the team can do. Guillen, who admires Pierre from their days together with the 2003 World Series champion Marlins, knows better than to ask the White Sox for him again.

Pierre isn't a bad player. He just has a bad contract.