[mikev]

Say Hello To The Closer of The Future!

When the message came from the scouting department, hand delivered by Paco Soto who had been back in his native Mexico, the scout was nearly beside himself with excitement.

"Senor Voelker, you must sign this kid I found in Jalisco!" said Soto. "He can almost throw 100, his changeup makes hitters look like children, and he has the slider -- ay, his slider! Never before have I seen a pitch so devestating, it starts out like a bullet straight toward the batters ear and cuts across so far that after the batter jumps back he cannot touch the ball! He is out there and looks like he is just playing with the batter as if they were a child's plaything. Sometimes he will let them hit the ball and then tell the batter where the hit will go. And he's only seventeen!"

With that, Mike Voelker finished his beer and stared back at Soto. "Paco, you want me to okay one-point-five million dollars for a seventeen year old kid? Listen, I'm sure he's a quality arm, but we just signed Turk for two more years, the bullpen is pretty much set. Look, show the tapes of him to Fernando, and if he's as blown away as you are I'll sign off on it."

20 minutes later, Crusaders head scout Fernando Flores came into Voelker's office. "Boss, this kid is legit. His swing-and-miss stuff isn't quite there yet, but he's got a golden arm. Control is pinpoint, and he's got a ton of movement on everything he throws. It's almost like he wants to get a bunch of groundball outs and not worry about making hitters miss so that he can get quicker outs. I didn't see anybody make solid contact off him, and he broke a lot of bats."

"It's probably against my better judgement, but I think you'd better go ahead and lock this kid up before another team does."

Voelker paused, sat back, and looked back at Flores. "I trust you. Lets get the kid."

Shortly after that, the team issued a press release announcing that teenage reliever Luis Vargas was the newest California Crusader.\

Vargas, a 6 foot righthander, signed a deal for the remainder of the season and is subsequently working on a long term extension already. SISA has not yet gotten a look at him, but the entire California scouting corp feel that Vargas is 1) ready for the bigs right now at age 17, 2) capable of contributing at a high level, and 3) has the potential to be one of the best closers in the entire GUBA.

The team plans on putting Vargas towards the back of the bullpen, possibly as a secondary closer behind Lopez as well as an extra setup man and middle reliever. The basic idea is going to be to get the kid innings and have him keep working on his pure stuff and harnessing his insane pitch movement to make batters swing and miss.

Rumors of a possible trade of Lopez to make room have, thus far, been simply rumors.