For the third consecutive trade deadline Codgers GM Rob Sullivan has refaced the team. The 2038 deadline saw veterans and arbitration eligible players shipped out of Palm Springs for future assets and payroll flexibility. 2039 saw many of those acquired assets along with those inherited when Sullivan took over the team sent out for players in or just entering their prime. 2040 is no different.

In the span of a few weeks the Codgers basically pushed their future into the middle of the table for the now. CF Angel Franco, CF Juan Ramos, LF Gabe Moran, 3B Doug Knox, SP Alberto Flores, SU Jordan Morgan, SU Rob Rowlingson, MR Pat Condon where brought in to join offseason acquisitions MR Bartolo Baca, LF Juan Carlos Ornelza, SS Juan Rodriguez and catchers Freddy Morales and Claudio Perez.

In doing so, the Codgers shipped out two years of #1-6 draft picks, bad contracts and poorly evaluated players along with the #2 prospect in the league Hisashi Takeuchi and several other quality prospects in a push for a playoff spot and a 2-4 year window to chase a championship.

“The James McCoy trade started this domino affect,” said Sullivan. ” The plan coming into the league was to get our house in order, create payroll flexibility, evaluate the prosects we had on hand and build through the draft. Once the dust settled on the McCoy trade we realized we had a young, talented starting rotation and decided it made no sense to let that staff languish on a bad team while they sped towards arbitration and eventually free agency. Plus we needed to find a way to convince our owner, Hopkins Reginald Bunner, to open the purse strings and add to the budget. We had one of the lowest budgets in PEBA so letting our pitching get expensive and hope we hit on some draft picks to compete would have led to breaking up our big three in the rotation. We decided instead to try and compete while the pitching staff was inexpensive. Who wants to live in a constant state of rebuilding?”

The moves have the Codgers in Wildcard contention and should they get in, they will be a dangerous opponent for anyone. The majority of this team has a chance to stay together through at least the 2042 season after which the Codgers will reevaluate as many of the younger players will be in arbitration or just entering their first foray into free agency. At that time the Codgers can reload or decide to sell off the pieces for assets and start the process over but hopefully with a much larger budget.

“I took long time friend and LA Rams GM Les Sneads advise, “F*ck those picks,” added Sullivan. “Hopefully the scale of our player movement will slow down and we can start collecting future assets. You are never done trying to make your team better but I really like our team now. We have several long term pieces in place with 11 of our pitchers under the age of 30, seven of which are 25 years or younger. We are locking up Morales for the next fours years and we really like our infield of 3B Carolos Ocasio, SS Hyung-oo Chu, 2B Javier Cervantes and 1B Doug Knox, who is the elder statesmen at 25 years old. Franco is 30 years old, Robby Rollins is still just 24 years old. We have some veterans we will need to make some tough decisions on but we are currently on the books for $115MM in salaries next year, we will have room to replace or add as needed to compete.”

The future is now in Palm Springs. Sullivan added, “I said it after the blockbuster deal with Shin Seki Evas and I will say this to the league again,”