Montreal has signed two more players to minor league contracts. On Thursday, Andres Galarraga and Alan Mills agreed to minor league deals with the team.

General Manager Omar Minaya has not been shy about adding players this spring, but unfortunately the selection available at this late date can hardly be described as choice. Galarraga has had a very respectable career, including an admirable return from cancer. I would almost certainly consider him a quality acquisition if Canseco were not already on the team, as I see several positives in his return to the organization. However, I still have fundamental concerns over filling the roster with good players in the dusk of their careers.

I was amenable to the acquisition of Jose Canseco because he was able to demonstrate with the White Sox that he still has most of what it takes to make a positive contribution to a team. I was troubled that he might take playing time away from prospect Brad Wilkerson but hopeful that he might see time at first base instead and have at least half the year he predicts he'll have.

With the addition of Galarraga there's nowhere for either player to field without taking bats away from someone else. I have no affection for Lee Stevens, so I don't mind a decrease in his plate appearances. A platoon of Galarraga against lefties and Stevens against righties would be almost certainly be an improvement.

However, his addition to the team exacerbates my concern over Wilkerson's playing time. With the virtual elimination of all other options other than left field, Canseco will take playing time away from Wilkerson if Canseco, Wilkerson, Galarraga, and Stevens are all on the roster together. At least Canseco and Galarraga are probably at risk for injury considering their ages and the artificial turf, so I don't expect them both to be healthy at the same time for much of the year.

Wilkerson is a quality prospect with solid speed and power skills. He has developed command of the strike zone during his time in the minors and appears ready to continue displaying his skills in the majors. Off-season shoulder surgery slowed his progress in 2001, but he still spent a couple months in the majors. He probably would benefit from a month or two at AAA building up confidence by dominating lesser pitching and delaying his arbitration clock, but he really deserves to make the roster and be the starting left fielder coming out of Spring Training.

Barring injury, Vladimir Guerrero will be in right field. Wilkerson currently shows more promise than Peter Bergeron, so if he were able to play center Montreal should consider that option. However, Bergeron has basically reached a sink or swim point in his career when he needs to find the strike zone or settle for a part time position. In order for him to have ample opportunity to fulfill his potential one way or the other, he will need all of his playing time. Wilkerson's shoulder surgery also puts his capacity to attempt fielding center into question, so centerfield is really a bad option all the way around, which brings us back to a need for playing time in left field.

Unfortunately because of Wilkerson's style of plate discipline, he's acquired a reputation that he lacks aggressiveness. Scouts are concerned that he doesn't swing enough. Minaya seems to have fallen prey to these doubts as there are now rumors that Wilkerson may be very available in trade. Last week rumors surfaced regarding a possible trade of Wilkerson for Timo Perez and/or Jorge Toca. Regardless of how little he may personally think of Wilkerson, Minaya would be grievously negligent if he were to complete such a deal.

Both players are a few years older than Wilkerson and well past the time when they could have been considered prospects. Perez had fairly well established that he had little potential beyond a reserve outfielder before he aged two years while returning to the U.S. for Spring Training. Toca has never displayed the offensive skills necessary to warrant even limited playing time in the majors at 1B, which is the only position can handle defensively. Given their profiles compared to the 24-year-old Wilkerson's, there is simply no legitimate reason for Minaya to even consider such a ridiculous trade.

Meanwhile, provided Masato Yoshii is chosen as the fifth starter, Alan Mills has a legitimate chance at making the team as the sixth man in the bullpen. If either Zach Day or Troy Mattes lands the last starting spot, then Yoshii will almost certainly join Scott Strickland, Scott Stewart, Britt Reames, Graeme Lloyd and Guillermo Mota in the pen. Reames is partially in the running for a starting position but will almost certainly be a swingman and long reliever in the pen considering his awful performance as a starter in 2001. Mota is the wild card as he's an established member of the staff but one of the only soft-tossers of the bunch, so he could be demoted.

Mills will have to compete with Osvaldo Fernandez, Joey Eischen, and Ed Vosberg for the final spot in the pen. None of the four have a roster spot, but Day and Mattes will almost certainly be sent to AAA if they don't make the rotation. At 31, Eischen has bounced around several major league clubs but has never been able to hold onto a roster spot for long. Eischen will be lucky to have had a career similar to Vosberg's when he turns 40, but at this point Vosberg doesn't have a particular edge. Fernandez is more accustomed to starting, so I suspect that he will wind up as injury insurance at AAA.

Mills is an acceptable pitcher against righties but should be kept away from lefties. He's also a bit homer-prone. His edge over Eischen and Vosberg is that the Expos already have two decent lefties in Lloyd and Stewart and are unlikely to carry three on the roster.

As long as he refrains from throwing Wilkerson or someone else away in a bad trade, Minaya seems to be doing a decent job so far in terms of acquiring depth and increasing roster flexibility. While they shine in very few places, there are also few holes in the team. Their success this year will depend upon the health of several key players, as well as Minaya's ability to manage the in-season roster with Frank Robinson.