PEBA Winter Meetings (Part 3 of 3)

[Coqui]

PEBA Winter Meetings (Part 3 of 3)

USA Today, by Lt. Col. John Frost

The final grades for each team follow. It should be noted that player ratings for this study have been gleaned from SISA and from the scouts of a few teams will to cooperate with us. We greatly appreciate the time and energy expended by all involved. The teams follow in no real order.

Manchester- C. Not a lot to work with here. Michael Kelly was a great pickup but it takes more than that to get an A from the crack staff here at USAT. I mean, one trade? That’s it? In reality, this is a good one for the Maulers but it is a bit confusing for a team that isn’t going to the playoffs. This year.

Kentucky- B+. Made one trade and made it a good one, falling in line with other teams in taking Tempe for all they were worth. Kentucky cut over $3 million in salary and acquired Doug Hinkle in exchange for a closer they don’t need. I wish I could write more, but that’s all that happened for them. And frankly, when Bill Shatner is hanging around your team, that’s a good thing.

Omaha- B-. Acquired a good starting pitching prospect in Francisco Madrid, a great prospect in Will George, and also got Lorenzo Vega who is a, catcher. Omaha lost starters Norris Moncrieff and Kisho Ageda but won’t shed tears over that. All in all, not great, but better than average.

Aurora- B. John Rodriguez, or J-Rod as the kids are calling him, finally found some time to do some work in the winter meetings and work he did. John looked under every bush and in every crevice to find catchers to trade. Ching hsia-Chin and Robun Fujimoto left and Victor Salgardo arrived. What makes this a mildly successful meeting for the Borealis is the influx of draft picks, two firsts and a fourth should be telling for Aurora.

Crystal Lake- B. Crystal Lake’s first trade, a straight swap of minor league relievers, wasn’t terribly impressive. The second trade, of Markus Shepherd and minor league flotsam, brought back one mediocre prospect, Andy Hood, and one pretty good one, Brad Howell, back from Yuma. It wasn’t a great trade for Yuma, which means it was for the Sandgnats.

Yuma- B+. Yuma dumped salary, patched a rotation for one year and cleared a lot off the books for next year. Two young middle relievers were added and an expensive old one was subtracted. Only the confusing inclusion of Brad Howell in the Crystal Lake trade keeps Yuma from an A. Hopefully this won’t be the kind of trade that leaves Yuma fans ruing this day.

Canton- B-. If “meh” were a grade, Canton would get it. They get middle relief and an added bat. They part with picks, a prospect and an added bat. It wasn’t anything great but they did rid themselves of the $5 million of Luis Navarro. That pushes them up over the even mark and allows them to address the myriad problems still facing this team.

Reno- A-. Reno’s grade comes down to one thing. Yes, they parted with Jeff Patterson but this team wasn’t going anywhere anyway. What Reno did do was cut $5 million in that trade, add a super sub in Geoffrey Porter, grab a catcher because they didn’t have one and add a starting pitcher. Sound good? It was. Paul Bober came with a plan and executed it quite well.

Duluth- A. Duluth came to these meetings with the most to do and left with the most done. Duluth was way, way over budget at the start of the meetings and started by cutting around a million on the first trade. $13 million headed to Arlington in the next trade and around $4 million went to Palm Springs about an hour after that. If you come in to the meetings looking to cut salary and you can do that, you’ve won. The picks and prospects are just icing.

Palm Springs- C. Palm Springs added a pretty good closer and a couple of picks and did it pretty cheaply. However, Juan Santos isn’t going to get you 19 games in the standings and the prospects (Brandon Collins and Loren Georges) that got shipped to Duluth are actually pretty good. The meetings could have been kinder to Palm Springs.

Tempe- D-. Tempe started by adding salary and age in exchange for prospects. One of those prospects, Doug Hinkle, could actually be quite good. Things took a mild uptick after that with the acquisition Jorge Lopez and Jose Rivera for Whit Andrews, a trade that brought in prospects and sent out salary. After that though, things went bad, like Titanic bad. In the final trade of the day for Tempe they parted with a promising, cheap, talented young starter in Bill Taylor and a highly rated catching prospect in Bob Keller. In exchange, Tempe took on $2 million in salary and Terry Thornton, who spent most of his time in 2008 in A ball, where posted this line: .215/.271/.338 at the age of 22. The meetings are not going to convince Tempe fans that this franchise is turning around.

San Antonio- B. It’s hard to grade a team that traded everyone that moved solely enough for Trader Matt to see them. In reality, the Calzones cleared major space, upped fan interest, acquired a good young starter (Bill Taylor), and added some draft picks. San Antonio also acquired projects from Omaha (Kisho Ageda and Norris Moncrieff) and grabbed a reliever from West Virgina. There was a lot of trading, but all of it went well.

West Virginia- Inc. Jeff Patterson. If he hits, West Virginia had a great three days, if he doesn’t they spent a ton of money and missed on it. Ching hsia-Chin will solidify the catcher position but it’s Patterson, the man with the cracked head, who wins or loses this for the Coal Sox. Tyler Babcock must be having a very hard time waiting to see what happens.

Arlington- A. Andres Lopez could very well equal the playoffs for this team. He’s expensive but playoff revenue will quite often cure that little problem. I hate only writing that about a team but what else am I supposed to say here?

Well that’s them, the movers and shakers of the 2008 PEBA Winter Meetings. They were long, they sometimes slowed, but they were never dull. As the third writer of this three person team, I thank you all for your attention. We’ll see you next year.

[Tyler]

Is it spring training time yet?

[Cole]

Good job with putting in those links!

[Coqui]

I am sure this matters to no one but me, but I am going to mention it anyway. The writers of this series of articles were all notable figures in major wars. I started with Benjamin Lincoln just for kicks and it spiraled from there.

Did you know that once you read something, you are doomed to never forget it? That means you are stuck with that little kernel of information forever.