We added several players to our roster prior to the Chapter Two deadline that we hope will add some value to our team this year and next.
First, we made a deal with our division rivals, the Darien Blue Wave, to acquire a much-needed catcher who can actually hit. As noted in my Chapter One Review, our catching tandem of Christian Vazquez and Robinson Chirinos somehow managed to hit .158/.200/.211 and .125/.227/.214, respectively. They barely outperformed the pitchers on our staff, who hit .175/.217/.193!
In our deal with Darien, we added Kurt Suzuki, who is among the best offensive catchers in the league, albeit in very short usage. He has yet to hit in the BDBL this season (all the better for us), but hit .268/.326/.453 overall on the disk, with 12 homers in only 276 AB's. Along with Suzuki, we also added Zac Lowther (since released) and Ka'ai Tom, a Rule 5 guy who is battling for a fourth-outfielder job in Oakland.
In exchange, we traded three pitchers that we believe will be valuable bullpen pieces in our 2022 season: Antoine Kelly, Matt Foster, and Jonathan Hernandez.
We also added three players as free agents:
Ryan Tepera: He developed a cutter in 2020 that led to the third-best contact rate in all of baseball last season, behind only NL ROY Devin Williams and Edwin Diaz. He doesn't always know where the pitch is going once it leaves his hand, but a weapon like that can be extremely valuable if used properly.
LaMonte Wade: The San Francisco Giants seem to have a knack for finding "Quad-A" guys -- older prospects who never got a chance at the MLB level, but excel once given that chance. Guys like Mike Yastrzemski, Donovan Solano, and Alex Dickerson are their most recent success stories. Wade, battling for an Opening Day center field position as I type, could be next in line.
Jeffrey Springs: Like the Giants above, the Tampa Bay Rays seem to have a knack for finding Quad-A guys as well, only on the pitching side. Springs, like Tepera, developed a nasty pitch in 2020. His changeup was one of the least hard-hit pitches in baseball last year (second only to Williams'). If he can harness that pitch as well as Williams did, we'll have a steal on our hands.
BONUS:
Before I could even sit down to write this piece, we pulled the trigger on our first Chapter Three trade, adding Kolten Wong and Sean Doolittle from the Ravenswood Infidels at the expense of Jeimer Candelario, Jose De Leon, and Tommy La Stella. Wong gives us another bat against righties that should be a major upgrade over Nick Madrigal. Doolittle shuts down left-handed batting, and will be very useful for us in that role.
Neither of the two trades we made are earth-shattering deals that will lead to another BDBL championship. Making such a deal would require sacrifices that we simply aren't willing to make. We had a very good chance to add Chris Sale this past chapter. We were also given a tempting offer to add Jacob deGrom to our rotation. Either trade would have given us the greatest starting rotation this league has ever seen, but neither trade would have guaranteed another trophy -- which no trade ever could.
We have committed to keeping our core of top prospects (Spencer Howard, Austin Martin, Asa Lacy, and Adley Rutschman) intact. We would also prefer to keep Madrigal and Connor Priellip on the roster as well. That leaves very little in terms of trade bait. We are very happy to have made the upgrades we did without having to sacrifice any of the players just named.
As I type, the league is still reeling from the Joplin Miners' latest trade, in which Jim Doyle went absolutely insane and traded his entire team away in exchange for future considerations. This trade effectively ends the McGowan Division race -- before we have even played a single Chapter Two game! We expected that race to be tightly-contested this season. Hell, the Miners led the league's polling in our division, making us the underdogs. That race is now over.
