Well after the season is over we have about 40 million coming off the books in salary. Peavy and Rios already account for about 30 million, give or take. Use that money to sign Figgins and that gives you two options. The first option is Figgins plays left, Rios plays center and Quentin plays right. You could also have Figgins play third, shift Bacon back to short, and try out Alexei in the outfield if he continues to mentally struggle at short. Either way we have speed in left and I'm confident that if Alexei can be servicable in the time he's spent in center, he'd do alright in left. All this being the case, we still probably would have to resign either Dye or Thome to be the DH, but they won't be costing us nearly as much money as before.
As for signing a starting pitcher, I say we go into spring training looking to give Hudson a shot, and if not, just try to fill the spot internally. With the starting four that we're looking at we have a little room to try and find a servicable fifth starter.