To answer the question I posed in the last TN: yes, the SFB trade floodgates have opened. But not in the way we expected.
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Traded 20-year old RP Carlos Williams to the Nashville Bluebirds, getting 21-year old minor league pitcher Brent Chappel, 22-year old minor league pitcher Enrique Pérez, and 19-year old minor league pitcher Tony Moran in return.
In our first deal completed during the Sim of Trade Mania we finally made a trade with Chad and the Nashville Bluebirds for the first time since I joined the BBA. Chad had been asking about Williams since the offseason, and while I liked the idea of parlaying my recently drafted phenom reliver into multiple starting pitchers, Chad wasn't ready to meet my asking price. Fast forward a few months and the Bluebirds have more minor league pitching prospects than they know what to do with so they up their ante and I oblige.
Williams made it to the show quickly and has a scouting report to make you drool. He's gonna be excellent in Nashville. I just don't like relievers that much, particularly low stamina ones, and I desperately need starting pitching. As Chad apty put it in his TN post, it's like I traded a recent first round pick for three pitchers who would be first round picks if they were in the next draft. I won't have three first round picks, but maybe I can replace Williams with another similar reliever next year with my one first rounder.
The headliner but also the biggest question mark is Chappel. He's got shoulder inflammation costing him the entire 2063 season and we don't know if he'll lump when he returns. The good news is that while he's been off the field he's seen his velocity jump one mile per hour and his two best pitches improve by two points to fill in their potential. If his changeup never improves he's just a BOR starter, but at full potential he could be a second starter.
At the surface, Perez is exactly my kind of pitcher. He's at least average in stuff, movement, and control. Every pitch in his arsenal still needs refinement, but maxed out it's a great three pitch mix. I think he could be a third starter if it all goes right. He's got a 3.01 FIP in his second go-round of AA so I'm going to assign him to AAA in hopes he's ready to start games for the Bears early in 2064.
Moran is the project. Still a teenager, his pitches aren't anything special but the game loves him, giving him 50 POT (compared to Perez's 45 POT). Despite his young age he's already pitching well in full season A in a competitive Bluebirds farm system. The biggest knock on Moran is that he's fragile.
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Traded 36-year old SS Qutuz Mahdi, 30-year old RP Bob Butler, and 31-year old minor league pitcher Don Starr to the Des Moines Kernels, getting 25-year old C Masakado Matsunaga in return.
Pour one out for Qutuz Mahdi. Some questioned his acquisition when we were on our way to losing 95 games in 2059, but on the back of Mahdi the Bears made the playoffs in 2060 and 2061. In those seasons--despite being 33 and 34 years old--Mahdi posted the highest WAR seasons of his career. He'll now finish off the contract extension we gave him with the Kernels (the Bears will be picking up 50% of the tab). There are not enough games left in the season for him to reach his vesting option for 2064 after the declining veteran spent most of the campaign injured or on waivers.
Like Mahdi, Butler was the only other recently traded Bear who was on the league's public trading block. Despite solid ratings, Butler has generally been a disappointment with San Fernando although he was finally getting it together as this year's closer with a 2.49 ERA and 11 saves. Butler should have two more seasons of arbitration eligibility.
Starr was mediocre during his BBA time earlier in his career despite good ratings. We were thrilled to get him as a minor league free agent but as his ratings declined we never got him to the majors. With stronger AAA results since the start of last year, Starr was finally going to be added to the active roster to replace Williams but now he'll have to find a spot in the Kernels bullpen. He could become arbitration eligible if he gets enough time with Des Moines.
I wrote a team preview of the Kernels for the 2060 season and that's when I first became aware of Matsunaga. I brushed him aside as a September flash in the pan who wasn't all that great defensively, but I followed the team closely that year to see how my preview would turn out and he just bumped and bumped. He's a curious player because even though his WAR progressed from 3.2 to 4.6 to 5.6 coming into 2063, his ratings were lumping. His offensive production doesn't reflect the lumps, as he's swinging a .278/.331/.495 bat. Most critically, he's a switch-hitter who will join a lineup in need of more guys on that side of the plate. He'll earn roughly $6M and $8M over the next two years, a bargain for such a valuable catcher in his prime.