The end of the BDBL World Series means the official beginning of the 2017 season. With that comes the announcement of trades that were made during the league's "quiet period." The Salem Cowtippers front office has been working tirelessly over the past month to secure the pieces they need to launch the 2017 Cowtippers back into contention. Today, we announce the completion of three trades that have been made so far that we hope will achieve that goal.
Trade #1: Salem traded Jeff Hoffman, Austin Hedges, and Huston Street to Charlotte for Miguel Cabrera.
It is difficult to justify trading prospects for a $13 million player when we could easily spend that money on a free agent instead without sacrificing any prospects. Freddie Freeman, for example, would be a comparable player to Cabrera, and will likely sign for somewhere in the neighborhood of $13 million in January.
We justify this decision for several reasons. First, this trade gives us certainty. History has proven that the auction is filled with uncertainty, and there are no guarantees. Secondly, Cabrera fills a desperate need for a middle-of-the-lineup, MVP-caliber, hitter, at a position where we had few desirable options. Thirdly, we only need to commit to two years with Cabrera, and we have hindsight with the first year. He is among the most consistent hitters in the game, and is a solid bet for 2018 as well. Lastly, the inclusion of Street (a $1.5 million cut) lowers Cabrera's cost to $11.5 million. For that price, it would be difficult to find an equally good hitter in the auction.
We have several good, young arms on our staff, which makes Hoffman somewhat expendable. And our next trade made Hedges expendable.
Trade #2: Salem traded Miguel Sano and Jorge Mateo to Granite State for Gary Sanchez and Odubel Herrera.
When we acquired Sano last year, we never intended to trade him. This is why we can't have nice things. It became clear to us after several weeks of negotiating with numerous teams that we would have to deal Sano if we were going to make any progress this winter. With Jose Ramirez at third base this season, and Rafael Devers set to take over the hot corner in the near future, Sano had become homeless. We believe that he will become an annual 30-40 home run hitter in the coming years, but we had to make this move in order to compete.
Likewise, we have very high expectations for Mateo. We believe that he has the potential to become a Trea Turner-like center fielder in the near future. However, given that we already have Turner, Mateo became somewhat expendable.
We will get roughly two chapters of usage out of Sanchez this season. When he is in the lineup, he will be a force to be reckoned with. Moving forward, we hope that he will become the long-term solution behind the plate that we have been looking for since this franchise was born.
Herrera gives us a solid left-handed bat in our righty-heavy lineup. He also fills a need in the outfield, where both Turner and Alex Dickerson are limited in usage. With this trade, we can now field a starting lineup with six hitters with an 800+ OPS against right-handers.
Trade #3: Salem traded Mike Fiers to Cleveland for Luis Sardinas.
This was actually our first trade of the 2017 season. We had great expectations for Fiers in MLB this past season, but he disappointed with a very inconsistent performance. He would have been an innings-filler for us in 2017. Instead, we flipped him for a useful part-time shortstop who will fill in against left-handers on occasion. With the addition of Sardinas, we can now field a lineup that includes six hitters with an 800+ OPS against left-handers.
There is still more work to do with our 2017 team. Our focus for the remainder of the trading season will be filling out our pitching staff. If we come up empty on the trading front, then we will have roughly $15 million to spend on free agents. The 2017 Cowtippers don't look like a division winner on paper as of yet, but we're making progress.
