NII-LON Trade Completed

[Vic]

Trade completed between Niihama-shi Ghosts and London Underground

NII receives:
CF Tuo-zhou Yang
LF Roman Suarez
$3 million

LON receives:
SP Kata Nakamura

Brian

[Nigel]

Trade completed between Niihama-shi Ghosts and London Underground

NII receives:
CF Tuo-zhou Yang
LF Roman Suarez
$3 million

LON receives:
SP Kata Nakamura

Brian

London Confirm. Yang's salary had become too rich for us and we seized the opportunity to convert him into a top half of the rotation pitcher who will initially cover Carver's absence and then enhance a strong rotation. We feel we have enough upcoming outfielders to cover his loss

[Vic]

The recent trade of Takeuchi hit our fan base pretty hard so we had to make a move to bring some love back. In so doing, we get a legitimate leadoff guy who has a chance to score a run every night for us. We picked up three real good starters this offseason with a fourth coming of age so Nakamura's departure shouldn't be too big a loss.

Yang's contract is a bit expensive but our recent moves brought in starters at minimum salaries for the next few years so we can afford a high contract or two. We also added another quality prospect as we continue to rebuild our farm system and improve our overall team speed.

[Matt]

Thinking out loud here, but....

It seems to me that the LRS teams have added a boatload of hitting talent with the change to trade rules, but pitching seems to be going the other way for the most part. Speaking firsthand running the Transmitters, I can find hitters anywhere, but pitching is impossible. Kawaguchi may have a decent offense and still lose 120 games just because we can't find pitching. With 8 Gaijin slots, our present split looks like it might be 5 hitters, 3 pitchers. I'm starting to think there might some real fireworks on the offensive side of things in the final season.

[roncollins]

It will definitely be interesting to see how the balance plays out this year. We may see offensive fireworks. But the other side of the coin says that we won't be playing games against four additional teams with the bottom half of the rotation being paper thin--which I think has had a tendency to bloat some of our offensive players' numbers. I think star hitters will still put up star numbers, but the journeymen may find it a much tougher row to hoe this year.

In all reality, Lupin will probably have a AAA squad full of pitchers who were fully capable of having good seasons in the "old" LRS (or, for that matter--actually had good seasons in the LRS). We'll see what comes of the new.

Bottom line on this trade, though, is that it probably makes NII better in the short term--though it was pricey. Of course, you have to figure it's best to spend your revenue rather than have the owner take it away as profit in the off season.

[Evas]

NII is putting together a heck of a lineup. Nakamura will be hard to replace though.

Still, the Ghosts have added some good arms this off season it could very well balance out in their favor.

[Matt]

This trade is official and has been processed.