Live footage of Vancouver putting the sheers to Twin Cities
Before we get into the nuts and bolts of Twin Cities recent trade with Vancouver, we first need some perspective. A wise baseball man once said that a team is always going to win 60 games and lose 60 games in a season. It's what they do with the other 42 games that separate the bad teams from the great ones. Well, how does one win only 45 games then? I mean even a blind squirrel can find a nut every once and a while. Right?
Upon dissection of the failure that was the 2049 River Monsters, one of the biggest sticking points was the disarray of the clubhouse. There you could find more turds than the port-o-jon at the local music festival. The feuding in the clubhouse turned good players into bad players and bad players into... err River Monsters. A culture change was viewed as a top priority.
Some decisions were easy. Many turds were flushed out of the organization with a simple click of the mouse, sending them directly into the pool of the unwanted. Others are seemingly more difficult. Enter Bastião Fardos and Vasco Fonzarelli. Now, neither one of these guys is a turd. One is selfish and the other is unmotivated. In a good clubhouse this can be overlooked. Yet in the Twin Cities zoo, they were part of the problem and not the solution.
Fardos in particular was considered a net negative. Let's hit the bullet points in coming to this conclusion.
-is selfish
-makes $10 million per season x2
-is a DH/ poor left fielder at best on a team loaded with LF'ers
-needs a platoon partner
-is closing in on 30(on a rebuilding team)
-has only had 3, maybe 4 good seasons out of 10
Yeah, so Fardos leaving was paramount. The added $10 million can also be used to add 2-3 depth players on the free agent market.
Fonzarelli is a little harder to try to spin here. He is 22, makes the league minimum and has the kind of power/eye that can make "three true outcome" lovers short circuit their laptops in excitement. I can't stand here and say he will always be a bum. There is a very good chance he can go to a better clubhouse, possibly even drink some of the fairy dusted water commonly found in Yellow Springs that makes you a better human being and turn it all around. Bottom line, he has potential and could easily make Twin Cities regret this trade. At the same time though, outside of one season in AA, he has looked completely lost as a hitter.
The four players heading to Minnesota aren't going to light the word on fire. Frank 'Doogie' Walbourne is another solid young starter to add to an already talented staff. What makes him interesting is that he has reverse splits. He will bait platoon heavy teams into stacking their lineups with lefties, which plays into his strength as well as his home park factors that favor righties slightly. Combine that with Twin Cities pledged commitment to defense and Doogie should have a breakout season.
Rick Childress is a bit of a pet project. He has a lot of talent and has produced big time in the minors and effectively in the BBA, yet could also be classified as a "broken player". Like Walbourne, he should be enhanced by his home park slightly and by infield defense greatly. The River Monsters will try him in a variety of roles(late inning, righty specialist, opener). His main purpose may be to muse the GM though.
Elliot 'Hawkeye' Baker comes to town to be a poor man's Vasco Fonzarelli. While his defense looks the same in the scouting report, stats say Baker is a much better defender. Hawkeye appears to be battling career minor leaguer Luca Colman for the LH hitting 3B roster spot at the moment.
Joe Whittier is a young-ish speedy defense first middle infielder who should do alright as a short side platoon/defensive replacement on a second division team. If that makes sense. Basically, Twin Cities has no quality, nor depth up the middle. Right now Whittier is in the mix with Jim Herrick, Bill Christensen, and Bob Allain to fill three SS/2B spots on the roster.
To wrap this rambling up... Bastião Fardos and Vasco Fonzarelli are good players who can do well in the right spot. That spot is not 2050 Twin Cities. The haul the River Monsters received is not inspiring. How this move makes Twin Cities better is depth. There is a plethora of in house options to not only replace, but upgrade over Fardo. Baker is no Fonze, but should be able to recreate his 0.4 WAR. That leaves Walbourne, Childress, Whittier plus the 2-3 free agents Twin Cities will be able to sign with Fardos' money as additional depth. Depth being the key word. In order to get better this franchise needs to crawl before they can walk again.
