Long Beach Press Telegram - 9-21-2000
Posted: Fri May 13, 2011 6:19 pm
The Surfers continue to fight for the first round draft pick in 2001, and the Carolina Kraken just won't go away. What more are we supposed to do? We suck hard. Cut us some slack!
There have been a number of big moves made by the club this season that have resulted in some nice, young additions to the team.
Traded away 24 year old starter Ramon Ayala, one of the team's few consistent players, to division rival Seattle in exchange for minor leaguers SS James Dicus, 3B Jason Faucette, and SP Dave Santry. Dicus was perhaps Seattle's most prized prospect, and the strong and versatile fielder continues to hit at AAA, making a strong argument to be called up. Faucette tore the cover off the ball in AAA and has 5 homers in his 18 games in Long Beach since being called up. Santry was struggling in A ball and was sent back to Rookie League where he is killing people softly with a 9-2 record and 1.86 ERA. He has also seen two control talent bumps that have taken him from a 6-7-8 pitcher at the time of the trade to a 6-7-10 pitcher today. The club felt that Ayala was mostly shine and no spit as his big strikeout numbers and solid control belied the fact that he couldn't keep the ball in the park. As such, they are thrilled to be able to add these fine, young players to an already solid minor league system.
In a trade with Marquette, the club made a bit of a reach in acquiring underachieving Jose Mijangos. They gave up two youngsters who might actually be better than him in RF Robert Hartford and lefty Jesus Torrealba. Why, you may ask? Well…it just seemed the thing to do at the time. Both the players we traded have strong platoon advantages. Hartford’s goes the wrong way, and a platoon differential is not a good thing in a starting pitcher, particularly a lefty. Mijangos has the potential to be fairly decent, as evidenced by his recent shutout of mighty Las Vegas, but we don’t expect a whole lot from him.
In another in-division trade, the Surfers sent 22 year old reliever Paul Stroud to Calgary in exchange for 20 year old reliever Caden Hage and recently drafted CF Jose Guerra. Stroud has great control and a ton of potential, but he had reached his arby years, and his strong platoon advantage and lack of performance to this point scared us. Meanwhile, Hage has perhaps more potential than Stroud and is also a candidate for conversion. Guerra has solid, all-around tools and could be very good with a little luck.
The club has also claimed several players off of waivers this year.
George Benz – From Las Vegas. 27 year old catcher will be a better backup than what we have had and depth at a position at which we have been weak.
Erich Teske – From California. 26 year old reliever was solid in 1999 but had not been good for the Crusaders this year. He has been back to form in Long Beach but isn’t happy about his situation.
Harold Crothers – From Valencia. Former 3-time AAA All-Star wasn’t in the Stars’ plans and hasn’t been happy about spending the year in AAA yet again as evidenced by his 5.03 ERA.
There have been a number of big moves made by the club this season that have resulted in some nice, young additions to the team.
Traded away 24 year old starter Ramon Ayala, one of the team's few consistent players, to division rival Seattle in exchange for minor leaguers SS James Dicus, 3B Jason Faucette, and SP Dave Santry. Dicus was perhaps Seattle's most prized prospect, and the strong and versatile fielder continues to hit at AAA, making a strong argument to be called up. Faucette tore the cover off the ball in AAA and has 5 homers in his 18 games in Long Beach since being called up. Santry was struggling in A ball and was sent back to Rookie League where he is killing people softly with a 9-2 record and 1.86 ERA. He has also seen two control talent bumps that have taken him from a 6-7-8 pitcher at the time of the trade to a 6-7-10 pitcher today. The club felt that Ayala was mostly shine and no spit as his big strikeout numbers and solid control belied the fact that he couldn't keep the ball in the park. As such, they are thrilled to be able to add these fine, young players to an already solid minor league system.
In a trade with Marquette, the club made a bit of a reach in acquiring underachieving Jose Mijangos. They gave up two youngsters who might actually be better than him in RF Robert Hartford and lefty Jesus Torrealba. Why, you may ask? Well…it just seemed the thing to do at the time. Both the players we traded have strong platoon advantages. Hartford’s goes the wrong way, and a platoon differential is not a good thing in a starting pitcher, particularly a lefty. Mijangos has the potential to be fairly decent, as evidenced by his recent shutout of mighty Las Vegas, but we don’t expect a whole lot from him.
In another in-division trade, the Surfers sent 22 year old reliever Paul Stroud to Calgary in exchange for 20 year old reliever Caden Hage and recently drafted CF Jose Guerra. Stroud has great control and a ton of potential, but he had reached his arby years, and his strong platoon advantage and lack of performance to this point scared us. Meanwhile, Hage has perhaps more potential than Stroud and is also a candidate for conversion. Guerra has solid, all-around tools and could be very good with a little luck.
The club has also claimed several players off of waivers this year.
George Benz – From Las Vegas. 27 year old catcher will be a better backup than what we have had and depth at a position at which we have been weak.
Erich Teske – From California. 26 year old reliever was solid in 1999 but had not been good for the Crusaders this year. He has been back to form in Long Beach but isn’t happy about his situation.
Harold Crothers – From Valencia. Former 3-time AAA All-Star wasn’t in the Stars’ plans and hasn’t been happy about spending the year in AAA yet again as evidenced by his 5.03 ERA.