Will more bodies add or distract from playoff push?
In a somewhat shocking situation, the Twin Cities River Monsters opted to stand pat at the trade deadline. Usually GM Alan Ehlers is known to gut his entire farm system in an attempt to win now. While there were many players linked to the River Monsters that seemed to be logical upgrades, the team feels they have a group of players ready to jump in and be solid contributors. While none of them will be all stars, it's an influx of 10 players that will hold their own weight in the teams "next man up", platoon heavy system.
Not only will these 10 players help out in September, but in the event Twin Cities makes the playoffs, it's very likely that some of these players will be sprinkled into the playoff roster on an in and out basis per round. This will create an ala carte roster suited to match up against whoever the opponent may be.
SP Iván Martínez
Martinez is a super bumper that was passed up 290 times in the 2053 draft. In his first big league start, he went 8 shutout innings giving up zero walks while striking out 6. There was an internal debate as he is already about 65 innings over his previous high and is injury prone to boot. If he stays in the rotation and Twin Cities goes deep in playoffs, he could pitch another 8-10 starts which would put his inning overage into the 120-140 range. But I mean , C'mon, he has posted a 6.0 War spread across 3 levels this season. If you don't put your best players on the roster, are you really trying to win?
RP Kerry Conner
The 32 year old southpaw will be making his BBA debut. I'm not quite sure why it has taken him so long. He profiles as a decent second division LOOGY. And LOOGY is the key word. Twin Cities hamstrung themselves with a bullpen that lacked options this season and went the whole way with just one lefty on the roster. It was a must to add a couple of lefties to give the team some matchup options.
RP Maurice Jeffes
Jeffes is coming off a solid season as a closer in AAA and has a career BBA ERA of 3.95 in 125 BBA innings. He mostly just gives the team some extra bullpen depth.
RP/SP Allen Page
Page has been the most asked about River Monster in trade talks the past few seasons. He's a young righty who can start or pitch out of the pen. He should be a decent backend of the rotation piece in the years to come.
RP/SP Tokugawa Yamashita
Yamashita could be a huge wild card. Not only is he the only lefty starter we have, but he is one of the most extreme groundball pitchers in the game. During the 2054 season he was the #1 groundball inducer out of any pitcher who threw at least 70 innings at any level from rookie ball to the BBA. This is where Kelsey Perry, Luis Pena, and Ignacio Venegas come in. Top infield defense + top groundball pitcher should equal success.
C Hasbi Yazîcîzâde
Easily the biggest hole on this TWC roster is catcher. The current platoon has produced negative WAR this season. Players like Octavio Moreno and Reggie Leeper were readily available at the deadline and probably wouldn't have cost much in the way of prospects. The River Monster were said to be afraid of Leepers splits and career number, picturing him as a product of San Fernando's park. While Moreno's 2 year, $44 million remaining after this season was just too much to swallow for a catcher entering his age 34 season. Even at 50% retention, they'd be paying $11 million per and have to give up players at the same time.
Yazîcîzâde was recently picked up as a minor league free agent. He is a totally different player than the other two current backstops. So we are going to give him a shot versus RHP this month and hope we catch lightning in a bottle.
COF/1B Devayana 'Gambler' Koganti
You can never have too many power bats on the bench that can win games with one swing of the bat. That is what Koganti is. He'll also be a short side platoon RF'er giving David Simpson the rest he needs while allowing Ronnie Hubbard to platoon in CF.
DH Anurodha Nayar
Like I said, you can never have too many power bats on the bench. Nayar was originally pegged to platoon with Sertaç Safavî at DH. But Safavi is having too good of a season to bench.
DH Joe 'Gopher' Edwards
Most of these players we had a plan in place for since before spring training. Edwards on the other hand is a late addition. I feel like our VS LHP lineup is a little weak. So Edwards will DH, sliding Safavi to 1B and benching Greek Freak.
LF/INF Carlos Flores
Flores was supposed to be with this group and short side platoon in LF, benching Ramos(.212/.340/.250 VS LHP) to keep him fresh for the playoffs. unfortunately Flores will miss the rest of the regular season. But if we do make payoffs, there is a very good chance Flores is on roster.
