Nelson Flores is one of our best prospects and deserves a call-up to the majors, hitting .321 with 15 home runs in AAA. He's 25 years old and my biggest obstacle to calling him up is his subpar defense. It hasn't improved defensively, yet he appears to be able to hold his own at the plate. I really want him to turn into our right fielder of the future, but that just doesn't look like it will happen unless we take a hit defensively.
Currently right field is being held down by Armond Sciorra, a 28 year old who has been worth between 1 and 2 wins since coming to the Monks. His salary keeps growing though, and I know there are better options out there. The trade offers for Flores continue to ramp up though, so we decided to explore one of those offers for Flores, and ended up replacing both the players that were going to be sent for Flores, and Flores as well. If I didn't write that I wasn't going to make a trade at the deadline I at least thought about it, because that was the intent. But it just didn't work out.
Going to Houston is RF Armond Sciorra, 22 year old starting pitcher prospect Ilusuarte Calazans, 21 year old right fielder Terry Simmons, 23 year old center fielder Anthony Lester, and 26 year old starting pitcher Larry Perez. Coming back to San Antonio is 24 year old right fielder Juan Delgado and minor league reliever Patrick Hanson.
Delgado is the #30 prospect in baseball, and he'll take over at right field. He's the big fish that we wanted if we were going to make a move. Calazans is the piece I didn't want to give up. The only reason he's not in our rotation in San Antonio is because of our depth. That's really why Perez is still in AAA as well. The Astros have four starters in the DL, the worst ERA in the American League among starters, and both should join the Astros rotation. I like Lester a lot, and think he's capable of playing center field in the majors. He got a shot this year and hit just .160, but he's not quite ready and only got the shot because of Sutton's injury. It was a tough trade to make.
While it's only been a couple of days Delgado is hitting .333 with 2 home runs for the Monks. We also called up Flores as well with Armando Ruiz hitting the disabled list.
The Monks finished July with a 16-9 record and have a 15 game lead in the AL West. Cam Gross, Pedro Jimenez, Julian Williams, Mauricio Maio, Pedro Torres, Michael Gibbs, and Lawrence Sutton were the seven Monks selected for the All-Star game.
32 year old catcher Esteban Albizu hit the 400th home run of his career for the Rockies.
