[mikev]

Crusaders Ink Two Free Agents

Going into the offseason, the Crusaders had one major hole in the lineup that needed to be filled: shortstop.

After making a small offer to free agent Pierre-Luc St-Louis, who team scouts thought was the best free agent option - albeit nothing spectacular - and eventually losing out on him to the Bogota Toros, the Crusaders looked to the trade market to make a middle infield aquisition. A multitude of negotiations took place with several teams, most notably Brian Beard, who eventually was traded from Pago Pago to Mexico City. Several other talks, some for marquee players and others for lesser known guys, all mostly stalled.

With an announcement released on January 25, 2010, the Crusaders announced that a 2-year contract with infielder Carl Hollingsworth had been signed earlier that day. Hollingsworth, the 36 year old second baseman who spent the 2009 season with the Warsaw Falcons and the previous two with the Jackson Gators, is to be paid 5.7 million dollars each season. In the press conference, Crusaders GM Mike Voelker announced that Hollingsworth will be penciled in as the opening day starter and incumbent Pedro Vargas would take over shortstop. "Pedro actually came to me with the offer to switch positions if it would help the team, that if we couldn't find a shortstop he would play there and give us the ability to look for a second baseman as well as a shortstop. Pedro is a gamer and he does what it takes to help the team, and his willingness to play short along with Carl's availabilty was a pretty good fit."

The only other notable signing for the Crusaders was inking 1B/DH Kinnosuke Sasaki to a 4-year, 21 million dollar deal. The signing was questioned by some, the Crusaders think that they've got themselves another big power threat. Last year's home run leader Jakob Forest set the team pace with 25 dingers. Sasaki is projected to at least hit that mark, if not be a 30/100 type of guy, at least according to our head scout who absolutely *loves* his talent. The move was looked at as a slight improvement over Enrique DeJesus, but for a 102 win team that finished 2 games behind Los Angeles for the MBBA Pacific division as well as 2 games behind Des Moines in the Wild Card, a couple slight improvements are really all that should be needed.

Word has it that the Crusaders still have negotiations in process for another player, though talks have stalled slightly over the past day or two.