Trade Report: Crawdads Send Mike D. To Canada
In a just concluded press release, it was announced that the New Orleans Crawdads and Vancouver Mounties have completed a deal that will send Crawdad infielder
Michael Diamond to the Mounties in exhange for outfield prospect
Tsukasa Sato and starting pitchers
George Fagg and
Abdal "King Tut" Tutmosa.
The move somewhat signals the beginning of a rebuild/youth movement for New Orleans. Diamond was one of two hitters on the team that hit .300 in 1995, and it's likely that his replacement
Kosuke Fukudome won't come close to that mark. Defensively, it's not much of a step down, if at all.
In aquiring two starters, rumors have floated around about the end of the
Shawn Boskie and
Righty Grove eras in New Orleans.
Crawdads GM Mike Voelker wasn't so sure. "I won't lie. Have I been contacted about them? Sure. Does that mean I'm going to deal them? Absolutely not. The team is in a position where we don't need to move salary, in fact we're under budget, and we feel that adding two more arms as well as another very good outfielder was a good move to make for us. Boskie is a bona fide #1 starter, and Grove is arguably a #1 as well. Unfortunately, they don't have the records to show for it."
Rumor has it that New Orleans would require at least one top prospect for either Groves or Boskie, but nobody is certain if they will be dealt or not.