[mikev]

2020 Trade Deadline Stuff

After aquiring Byron Guthrie and Alejandro Bruno to California, at the cost of outfielder Carlos Mora, the Crusaders faced a deadline need of an outfielder. The only starting caliber players on the team were Alfonso Inigo and Ricardo Soto.

Multiple players were placed on the trade block, most notably Tommy Aucoin. He would only be dealt for an impact outfielder, though, and there were (literally) no inquiries about him. Slightly puzzling to me, but whatever.

Trying to be proactive, we sent out a good number of feelers to try and go after guys to fill the void in the outfield. You would think that finding a solid corner OF shouldn't be that big of a deal, but some of the offers we got were laughable at best, some of our offers were essentially ignored until there was no time left to negotiate, and a few times we thought we might have had deals in place after we met the asking price set in a trade block, but refused to include more.

In all, it proved to be an insanely frustrating deadline day. We ended up sending minor league shortstop Kapuaula to the Manhattan Myst, along with a #4 and #7 pick, for pitcher Luis Antonio Estrada and outfielder Craig Crum. While neither are world beaters, Estrada is an upgrade at the #5 starter spot, and Crum is an elite defender who should at least be able to give us a .750 OPS or so.

Then, literally minutes before the deadline, Buffalo offered up Victor Bunch to anybody who would give up a third round pick. Needless to say I jumped on the deal, as I'd actually inquired about Bunch earlier in the day, and he was our new starting right fielder with Crum being moved to a 4th OF spot, which I'm much happier with.

Of course, it's a good thing we aqcuired 2 outfielders. Inigo proceeded to get hurt for 7 weeks, so Crum is back into a starting job for the near future. Sigh.

Overall, I'm not really happy with the way the deadline worked out for California, but oh well. What are you gonna do.