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CHAPTER FOUR
NEWSLETTER To: Salem Cowtippers fans Our excruciating season of severe disappointment and inexplicable underperformance continued in Chapter Three, as we went just 11-13 on the chapter (including an embarrassing series defeat at the hands of the league's worst team) and were outscored by 23 runs. While our offense has somewhat snapped out of its early funk (we hit .259/.329/.427 on the chapter), our pitching staff continues to perform in ways that simply make no sense whatsoever. After posting a 5.03 ERA last chapter, your Salem Cowtippers own a team ERA of 4.98 this season. Only the New Hope Badgers (5.12) and Corona Confederates (5.59) own a worse ERA in the Ozzie League. I'm at a loss to explain this. When we came into this season, we looked at our starting rotation of Josh Beckett, Felix Hernandez, Justin Duchscherer and Brett Myers ranked behind only the Los Altos Undertakers and San Antonio Broncs in the Ozzie League. And on paper, that was true. But that certainly hasn't played out the way that we -- or anyone -- expected. While Beckett's ERA is close enough to his MLB number (4.03), he has already allowed 19 home runs this season. In 174+ MLB innings, Beckett allowed just 18 homers. Myers is sporting an ERA that is roughly half a run higher than his MLB ERA, and right-handers are clobbering him to the tune of .310/.381/.539. And Hernandez...well, Hernandez's plight this season has been well-documented already. The numbers speak for themselves: MLB: 3.45 ERA, 8.9 H/9, 3.6 BB/9, 7.8 K/9,
0.8 HR/9, 798/632 splits I mean...come on. Those numbers aren't even close. Even if you factor in ballpark differences, defensive differences, etc., those numbers are absolutely ridiculous. And then, there's the bullpen. 13 blown saves on the season. Grant Balfour's 3.12 ERA (nearly 2.5 runs higher than MLB.) Brandon League's 842 OPS against righties (over 300 points higher than MLB.) Scott Eyre's 1036 OPS against lefties (nearly 400 points higher than MLB.) Edwar Ramirez's 6.49 ERA. Justin Hampson's 8.84 ERA. The list goes on and on. One absolutely mind-numbingly ridiculous performance after another. We now sit at 38-42 at the half -- ten games behind the nauseating Blazers in the division. The season is, for all intents and purposes, over. Faced with that undeniable reality, I had no choice but to begin looking toward the future. Our biggest trading chit was Ryan Dempster, and our biggest need next season was finding a catcher whose batting average exceeds his IQ. Having spent this entire season watching Kenji Johjima straddle the newly-dubbed "Johjima Line" of .100, we've come to realize that you can't field a lineup of seven hitters and expect to compete. We found an unlikely trading partner in Jim Doyle of the Manchester Irish Rebels and quickly agreed to a deal that would be derided throughout the league. Of course, the catcher we acquired from Manchester -- Kurt Suzuki -- then went on to hit .248/.295/.371 in the month of May, and is just 8-for-35 (.229) so far in the month of June. While we remain hopeful that Suzuki will finish the season with his usual .340+ OBP, it's quite possible we'll still be hunting for that elusive catcher this winter. One overlooked aspect of that Manchester trade was our acquisition of Scott Elbert. Once considered to be among the best pitching prospects in the game, Elbert suffered through multiple injuries and fell off the radar. But he's now fully healthy, and still young enough at age 22 to have considerable upside. In 52+ innings at Double-A, Elbert has struck out 68 batters -- an average of 11.7 per nine. Next, we unloaded our disappointing closer, Grant Balfour, to the Los Altos Undertakers in exchange for another outstanding young lefty prospect, Brian Matusz. This was a no-brainer trade. Not only was Balfour pitching poorly for us, but he also had little usage remaining this season. And since he's sporting a 5.79 ERA in MLB this season (with 18 BB's in 28 IP), he'd likely be an $800,000 cut for us next season. Instead, we get a kid who was considered to be the top college pitcher in the draft in 2008, and who is off to an outstanding pro debut (66+ IP, 56 H, 5 HR, 21 BB, 74 K, 2.16 ERA in High-A.) Win-win. With Manny Delcarmen (traded in the Manchester deal) and Balfour both gone, that left us with only one quality reliever in our bullpen. Unfortunately, that "quality reliever" posted a 5.87 ERA for us, and owns a 5.40 ERA overall this season. He is also owed $6.5 million next season, and although he probably won't pitch in MLB this year, there is an outside chance that he might. Rather than take that risk, we sent him to Los Altos' main competitor, San Antonio, in exchange for Chad Durbin and another promising young arm in Hector Rondon. I continued to shop around our other trading chits -- free agents-to-be Scott Rolen and Derek Jeter, and overpriced star Jody Gerut -- with little success. The level of interest for these players was much lower than what we anticipated, and there is no incentive to sell off these players for "best offer," since every loss we incur comes with a penalty that will continue to stick beyond 2010. So, it was at this point that I decided to use the deflated trading market to my advantage, and attempt to improve our 2009 team enough to win a few more games and perhaps avoid a penalty. First, I flipped Rondon to the Akron Ryche in exchange for Javier Vazquez and Brian Tallet. With Dempster gone, Aaron Harang became our #4 starter. Vazquez is a huge upgrade over Harang, and Tallet helps to fill the void left by all of our departed relievers. Next, I traded Paul Byrd (acquired in the Manchester deal) for Aaron Boone, and then used Boone as part of a package to acquire Ty Wigginton from the New Hope Badgers. Wigginton fills a major void in our lineup, as he can play the outfield (where we have numerous usage issues) and third base (filling in for Scott Rolen, who has usage issues of his own.) The trade cost us a .300-hitting catcher for 2010 in Ryan Hanigan, but with Suzuki and Johjima both locked into our 35-man roster next year, there was little room for a third catcher. I'm taking a gamble here that both Suzuki and Johjima will bounce back and become useful components of our roster. Finally, we came to an 11th hour agreement with the Atlanta Fire Ants, sending Gerut to them in exchange for young starter Jeff Niemann. Niemann is off to a good start this MLB season. In 63+ innings, he's allowed 65 hits, 8 homers and 27 walks, while striking out 42. He owns a 4.12 ERA and 758/793 splits. At only $100K in salary and 26 years of age, there is considerable upside potential for this former #1 pick. We made a few more additions to the roster during the big Chapter Four free agent transaction period:
With all of these changes taking place, we hope to see some improvement not only in our 2009 ballclub, but in 2010 and beyond. Our 2009 lineup is now significantly stronger than it was at the beginning of the season, and if our pitching staff ever turns it around, we should play better than .500 ball in the second half. This has been an incredibly frustrating season, but it, too, shall pass. We've been through worse as an organization, and we'll get through this as well. And hopefully we'll emerge from this disaster stronger than ever. Warmest regards, Mike Glander |
