Internal Mole Says Spuds Mashed Offer
“I can say that the kids were all solid, but not superstars,” an anonymous voice from inside the Yellow Springs front office said when discussing a deal that the team’s executive suite is rumored to have put forward in hopes of acquiring Boise sensation Dennis French.
Did Spuds Turn Down
Entire Team for Kid
Superstar?
“It was the damnedest thing I’d ever seen. It was a serious slice of the team’s system. I mean, you didn’t see the name Pineda or Ramirez in there, but you don’t often see this front office offer four pretty solid pitchers in any deal. I bet the kids in the pile would win 80 games in the bigs all by themselves.”
Take everything here with whatever grain of salt you want, especially given the source, but at the end of the day it’s clear that whatever offer was out there, the Boise front office (whose team is currently 49-72, and dead last in the Frontier even with French) put the deep fry on the deal pretty quickly, suggesting they would keep it in mind if the team suddenly encountered a mass extinction event that didn’t include French.
“But that’s probably code speak for ‘get that pile of pig shit out of here,’” our informant said.
French, who is now 23, is hitting .356/.393/.619 on the season, with 25 homers. He’s been a darling of the league since his debut, but is ready to hit arbitration, where pundits project he’ll see his salary rise to at least 8 digits. Boise made waves earlier in the year by suggesting he might be available. His addition to the Yellow Springs roster would likely have made the club an odds-on favorite to destroy the post season curse that has plagued them since inception.
Alas, it was not to happen.
“You can’t say they didn’t try,” the informant said with a wry grin.
