Early season pickups for Wichita
Two weeks into 2043 and the Aviators are below .500 already, but things could be worse. We have however claimed our first two players of the waiver wire and that has caused a ripple of roster moves and we accommodate them and our own players that have now cleared waivers.
Arriving are 26-yr-old pitcher Takanori Goto claimed from Brooklyn and 24-yr-old Javier Bultron, claimed from Nashville who can play both 1B & 3B. Two players will obviously have to either be optioned to Albuquerque or waived to clear the roster space. We had a lot of juggling to make the roster numbers but in the end we optioned Orlando Sanchez and Ernesto Ramirez to Triple-A Albuquerque.
With Jim Gouzzie returning to form, the consensus was that Ramirez, despite a reasonable start to his first ever BBA season, would benefit from playing every day which we could do in Albuquerque. If Bultron doesn’t work out as a backup 1B/3B it could be a shot stay there, Bultron has only eight starts at BBA level himself, but is considered a slight upgrade over Ramirez, particularly in gap power and on the base paths. Goto will slot into the #5 starter role in the rotation, Sergio Rojas hasn’t really done enough to warrant losing his rotation slot this early on, but we were always concerned about the movement on his pitches. Goto will provide more variety and Rojas will head for the bullpen.
We also had a number of players clearing waivers at the same time which caused us some problems. Yann Legrand refused to report to Albuquerque and was released, while Miroslav Tomanek & Duane Coutts reported. The whole thing resulted in four players being released from Albuquerque as well, Yasuoka Okamura, Bernie Adamczak, Orlando Sanchez and Enrique Rivera all leaving us