Probably a good time to mention one of the little rules I have imposed in this exercise: I’m not allowed to instigate any trades with the team I ran immediately prior to my current one. I am allowed to pick up FAs that may have played there, and if the trade proposal comes from them I am permitted to engage. I just can’t start the ball rolling.
We don’t have a huge surplus of cash or budget room, so this first time around it is all about just getting things headed in the right direction both on and off the field. Our poor performance last season of course means we have a pretty sweet Draft position of #16, so we should pick up a gun and 2 or 3 handy enough types in early June. That should help, although perhaps not with the immediacy I seek.
Here’s a summary of the wheeling and dealing in which I participated over the offseason. I won’t go into too much depth, you’ll get to know the important ones as things progress.
TRADED AWAY
- P Ray True
- P Matt Battista
- 2B Travis Greenblatt
- 3B Alvin Nelson
- C Justin Howell
- SS Ken Russell
- P Kurt Larson
- LF Ryan Scott
- 1B Roberto Ardila
- SS Taylor MacRae
- P Jon Champagne
- P Jayden Jones
- P Roy Mackelprang
TRADED FOR
P Matt Skinner
Back end of the rotation type with a decent arsenal but far from overwhelming. Will be our #5 starter.
P Paul Webb
RH reliever who should develop into a decent enough LR / ESP over the next couple of years.
P Steve Miller
Career 32-18 / 3.34 lefty who will be our #2 starter.
P David Hague
Straight-up southpaw middle reliever.
P Mauricio Sotelo
A real workhorse who will be our ace until Jake fully develops.
P Jason Roberts
Top-notch RH reliever who’ll be our setup man.
P Scott Cutrer
Our best reliever by some margin, which makes him our stopper or closer or whatever you want to call it.
P Shawn Mason
Should turn out to be a fairly good SP4 for us.
P Dave Nolen
Warm body duties to cover the inevitable injuries.
P Chris Berrios
I’m calling him our “lefty of last resort”.
IF / OF Matthew Withers
Handy utility although far from defensively elite. Will start at 3B v RHP and RF v LHP
OF Matt Kendall
Plays all 3 OF slots plus 1B fairly decently. More a slappy hitter than I’d like and next to no power, which means he’s more a bench and backup than everyday player. Has hit over .300 his last two seasons in Nevada, so you never know.
2B Mike McCarthy
Lovely low-key guy who should hit .280 or thereabouts but again has no pop.
FREE AGENT BUYS
P Blake Palmer: 1-year / $20k
Lefty mid-long swing man who should see plenty of innings.
It’s an OK squad, not great but OK for this league. Decent speed but light bats so we’ll be adopting a smallball approach for the most part. Our big weakness is the mediocrity of the vast majority of the group, which makes us overdependent upon too few players.
As if the universe could hear my thoughts in this regard, Tyler Franchi falls down the stairs at home a month before the season starts, sustaining multiple injuries that will see him miss the first month of action or thereabouts. Fantastic. Oh well, at least we’ll get to see some of these other guys in action and hopefully get a bead on their gumption, guts and game-smarts.
I have suitably tempered expectations here. Lowball 40-45 wins / hoping for .500 ball / 55-60 would be a huge success.
The pros are thinking the same way, predicting us to go 54-51 with a team BA of .261 (3rd in the MTL), 105 (5th) and ERA of 4.25 (2nd). That would put us third and 13 games behind Billings. I’d take it. Gladly.