37.5. An Opening Day Eve Trade

[agrudez]

'Twas the night before opening day and all through Huntsville the executives were stirring to trade away their closer.

Yes, after one season with the Phantoms - a season where he posted 2.8 WAR off the back of an unreal 2.28 FIP - Esteban Velasquez is heading out of town. For a team that has playoff aspirations (after narrowly missing for the second straight year) it was certainly a head scratching move... and the early returns on fan reaction are, well, not good - to say the least. They feel betrayed, confused... down right angry. And they probably should. The team can tout the potential promise of Diaz and Brinson or bloviate about Baez's own >2 WAR 2036 season, but even less discerning fans will be able to see through the facade. No one on the Phantoms right now can replace Velasquez. Arguably no one in the league can replace Velasquez. The Phantoms are worse today than they were yesterday and if Stever misses the playoffs for a third straight year the fans will - no doubt - look back on this day with ire as they sharpen their pitchforks.

But... maybe not all fans will have so visceral a reaction. Maybe longtime followers of the Phantoms will recall all of the other times Stever 'pulled a fast one' on them - jettisoning a fan favorite or a productive player in the middle of a 'win now!' season. His career as a GM is basically defined by his complete and utter disregard for the 'human side' of such transactions. And when you take a step back, you start to see why this deal might have happened. You start to see that, hey, the bullpen isn't too shabby on a whole. You start to see that Velasquez was at the end of his contract and that re-signing him to another big contract would've hindered the team's ability to keep guys like Peithner, Yelainen, Hall and Nicto in the coming years - or, at a minimum, hinder the team's ability to allocate resources to other areas of need (areas management deems more important than the 'pen).

So, the fans need to ask themselves, was a R1 supplemental pick + 1 more season of Velasquez worth more than Moelling and Valdez in the long run? Though, they might want to wait to ask themselves that in October... because how the Phantoms compete in 2037 might lead to vastly different responses.

[Fat Nige]

You can trade the whole team before Opening Day as far as I’m concerned lol

I’ll need every help possible to win my home opener, I won’t be surprised if the fans don’t turn up for me. The Sluggers are haunted by last April 1st ‘s home opener which turned into a 22-5 defeat