Editor's Note: Let's Get Down to Business

Now that the Manny Ramirez situation is over, and the slugging left-fielder is back in Hollywood, it's time for the Dodgers to start to seriously look at the team. No more waffling on the team's potential. It's time to study the Dodgers' players and their potential. And the best place to look is the pitching staff. While the staff has the most potential it's had in years, it also has the most risk. When a 25-year old Chad Billingsley is your ace, those are the kind of problems you can find. Billingsley can still most likely have another standout year, but if he becomes the ace of the rotation, the pressure can get tough. Hiroki Kuroda is a roller-coaster pitcher, who can take a perfect-game into the eighth inning one game and surrender 6 runs in his next. But with two playoff wins under his belt, Kuroda quickly becomes a key component. Clayton Kershaw is the wild-card in the rotation. A first-round pick who made his first big-league start at the tender age of 20, Kershaw embodies the 2009 staff: incredible potential to either astound or crash and burn. Randy Wolf can be a terrific influence, but only if he can stay off the DL. Then the fifth slot. After Chan Ho Park's success last season, the Dodgers look to past-their-prime pitchers to make a difference this season. Players like Jason Schmidt, Eric Milton, Claudio Vargas, and Shawn Estes all have had troubles in the last several years. If Schmidt can stay healthy, he becomes the favorite for the fifth spot. If not, it becomes Vargas's to lose. Other options still remain that the Dodgers really need to consider, including another past-his-prime pitcher: Pedro Martinez (above). With the Manny-drama over, pitching is once again a priority, one nobody can overlook.