SINCE YOU’RE GONE; Part Three (the end)

So, we had our list and we didn’t check it twice. Which is where the troubles began. As there were to be 30 teams represented, several Mock GM’s mock showed up – which means they were not present at the function.

Which really threw a monkey wrench into the evening. Several teams were wanted to take advantage of we not represented. Gary Huckabay and James Click were to pick up the slack, but they were also representing MLB and the free agent pool (not a conflict of interest if you asked Bud Selig). So Gary and James became the dog poo for the constant swarm of flies.

Not to mention that several GM’s did not do their homework. When we approached a few teams they had no idea of some of the minor league players we were asking about. So, we offered our laptop with a slue of stats to peruse. Of course some of the GM’s saw the stats and became reluctant and others saw the stats and didn’t understand what we saw.

Well, it was quite simple. For hitters we looked at On Base Percentage, number of extra base hits compared to the league they played in, strike out to walk ratio and most importantly ignored stolen bases and RBI. For pitchers we looked at strike outs to innings pitched, walks to innings pitched along with hits to unearned runs (a ridiculous stat – we just wanted to see if you were paying attention). But, we also looked at earned runs versus runs. Obviously, if there are a significantly higher number of runs than earned runs, the pitcher might have been the victim of bad defense or bad luck.

Surprisingly there was a TON of talent in AA and the AAA teams seemed rather iffy. While Toronto looked loaded the Expos looked like a, ugh, a team run by ‘baseball men’.

So, when we got the go ahead to go ahead with making our moves we waited. Minnesota wanted to discuss their middle infielders for the Expos middle infielders. Basically Minnesota wanted to see if we were stupid. We weren’t and moved on.

We inquired about Miguel Batista at the free agent table along with Olmedo Saenz and Jose Guillen. Batista had already had offers in the 3 year $10 million range, which was out of the question. Saenz was looking for a major league deal at $500,000. Guillen hadn’t been made an offer and we were just going fishing, and didn’t like what we heard there, either. We tried to get Saenz down to a minor league deal but there was no go. We then asked about another right-handed pinch hitter possibility, Rickey Henderson. Rickey wanted 150 at-bats and a million bucks. Rickey was dreaming. Rickey could get incentive into his clause that if he had 100 at-bats with an OBP of over .360 he would get a $100,000 bonus on a base salary of $400,000. Rickey didn’t like that. We moved on.

We hit up Toronto, Chicago White Sox and were on our way to Tampa Bay when the first trade of the evening was announced, "Acquired Jermaine Dye, Graham Koonce, and Mario Ramos from the Athletics for Aubrey Huff".

Well, we were too late to rape either the A’s or Devil Rays and that trade kind of set the mood for the evening. The A’s didn’t want to give up anything after that and didn’t. We tried getting Mark Ellis, Eric Byrnes and Chad Bradford along with a throw in for Steve Stanley or Justin Duchscherer for Jose Vidro or Orlando Cabrera or a catcher. We asked whom they were looking to acquire to see if we could swing a three-way deal with someone – notably Houston, who was looking to dump payroll and we had sweet dreams of acquiring Lance Berkman. We worked on the A’s GM for about 5 minutes at a time and we got the definitive feeling he had been taken for a ride by Tampa Bay. We tried stroking his ego, but that didn’t work. So we went back to Chicago and Toronto and tried to play one off the other making both verbal assurances that we would not make a deal until coming back to the other. The worst part is that the Toronto GM thought we were asking for a pitcher, Guillermo Quiroz, when he was a catcher. It was quite vexing and took a lot of energy not to just throw in the towel. But, Toronto had too much talent to pass up so we eventually worked a deal: "Acquired Alexis Rios and Selwyn Langaigne from the Blue Jays for Orlando Cabrera."

A few question marks appeared over the heads of some of the other owners. There should not have been any. There should have been a lot of wowing.

ALEXIS RIOS - OF

OBP	XBH	SLG	BB	SO	Runs	Level/Position
.402	54	.521	39	85	86	AA/OF

SELWYN LANGAIGNE - OF

OBP	XBH	SLG	BB	SO	Runs	Level/Position
.411	23	.459	39	44	43	AA/OF

We didn’t know it at the time, but Selwyn Langaigne was no longer property of the Blue Jays. Great. We started thinking, and decided we needed to work in a phrase, "and cash". Montreal was cash strapped and we figured we could always get cash for some of the talent we had on the roster. Still we got one of the best prospects in baseball for a player who was going into arbitration.

So, we decided to double check with Olmedo Saenz. We triggered a deal: "Signed Olmedo Saenz for 1 year, $400,000 with a team option for $500,000 or a $200,000 buyout". Why, you ask? Because Olmedo is a competent corner infielder, a good on-base percentage player and has a knack for getting nailed with pitches. He has good power, but can’t run. Like we care. But, we got a fiscally responsible deal that we could also use Saenz for trade bait down the stretch.

We were tracked down by the Brewers’ GM after we mentioned to someone we were looking for him. We set up another viewing of the stats off the laptop for the players we were asking for. We set up another deal that also involved cash: "Acquired Peter Zoccolillo and Francisco Campos from the Brewers for Noah Hall” or as Gary Huckabay said, “a wet sack of mice for two wet sacks of mice". Well hall is a 26-year-old outfielder still in AA. The others?

PETER ZOCCOILLO - OF

OBP	XBH	SLG	BB	SO	Runs	Level/Position
.360	49	.447	51	70	57	AAA/OF

FRANCISCO CAMPOS - SRP

IP	ERuns	K’s	BB	Hits	Runs	Level/Position
177	70	147	57	209	94	AAA/SRP

So, we basically traded a player for himself and a Mexican League/AAA pitcher. Just a 5th starter or long reliever who wouldn’t mind a few extra runs being scored on him and could handle the anonymity of his circumstances. Let’s move on.
We started working on the Chicago White Sox, who had several prospects we wanted. Lucky for us, we didn’t make any deals as we found out later, two of the players had been traded just a few days earlier. Tim Hummel had gone to Cincinnati and Aaron Miles had gone to Colorado.

The next deal was a piece of art: "Acquired Byun-Hyung Kim, Kevin Youkilis, and $5 million from the Red Sox for Jose Vidro". We got a starter, or a closer, we got an on-base machine and we got $5 million for a player whose contract was up at the end of the year. But the beauty of the situation is how we talked the GM into swinging the deal. We started slowly, "c’mon, you’re a second baseman away from the World Series." Then we worked the long term, "c’mon, you know you’re going to go after Eric Chavez in the off season so Youkilis means nothing to you. Even if you convert him to a first baseman you can get a one with more power down the road." Then we added the kicker, “and cash." We left it up to an arbitrator, Gary Huckabay to decide on a dollar figure and act as MLB to approve a cash deal over $1 million. Oddly enough, since MLB owned the Expos they approved their own deal.

The next deal was simply to dump salary and an albatross: "Acquired Jamey Wright from the Royals for Michael Barrett". Barrett has one of the worst set of stats for a catcher since A.J. Hinch was A.J. Hinch. Jamey Wright is coming off of a decent season in and around the PCL. He’s not really a prospect at age 29, but he also had to pitch in the Rockies system for a number of years. That buys him at least 3 seasons. He’s a cheap 5th starter or long reliever.

The clock had started winding down to the last five minutes and we decided to just grab whatever we could with another prospect and sign a free agent: "Acquired J.J. Davis from the Pirates for Tony Armas Jr.". We’re not sure of Armas’ health and Davis could have matured (he was named to Team USA) and be ready to take the next step in his development.

JJ DAVIS - OF

OBP	XBH	SLG	BB	SO	Runs	Level/Position
.342	59	.554	35	85	68	AAA/OF

We then signed Rickey Henderson as our designated Hall of Fame entry and got him for a song at $300,000.

So, we trimmed nearly $20 million from the payroll, added several prospects, added $5 million – plus in cash and we awaiting the non-tender list. We could easily add three middle infielders and make a trade for a player near Spring Training if need be. We were in good shape and the team payroll was in the low $30 million range. Not to mention we were significantly younger.

James Click at Baseball Prospectus wrote up two articles on the event, the first being here and the second with the run down of all the transactions being located via this here link.

Click takes some shots at the participants, pretty ballsy considering that BP didn’t fill the room.