2035.4 Trading the boon

[bschr682]

After the tremendous success of the Rule V draft, how would the team move forward with the new acquisitions? Well try to trade them of course! Augie is a great young player but his skill set is slightly skewed from the mold of a Boise position player. He doesn't have much power and his defense can be a bit suspect. It didn't take long for the offers to flow in with most of them being pretty creative and involving other moving pieces. At the end of the day the deal that made the most sense ended up being the deal offered by Mexico City.

The Aztecs have long had issues filling the catching slot over the years even dating back to their Omaha days. Augie's slap hitting affinity is also right in the Aztec wheelhouse. Put those conditions together and you wind up with a win-win swap for both clubs. Heading south to Mexico would be Augie and expansion pick catcher Santiago Reyes. Reyes is very young, has a good slap happy type bat and is at least ok behind the plate (given time to build up that position experience). Reyes will be in the catching mix for Mexico City for many years to come. Coming north to Boise would be 3 very fine players. C Yasutoki Yoshida, SP Cris Rios, and 1B slugger Yunosuke Terada.

Yoshida will immediately be declared the backup catcher to Jose Rivera allowing top prospect Claudio Perez to further develop his power stroke down in the minors. Yoshida provides some pop of his own as well. Rios will immediately slot in as the 2nd best pitcher on the team and is capable of filling in as staff ace should Felipe Murrillo be traded or opt out at seasons end. Terada feels like the real get here which may seem odd as 1B tend to grow on trees. The young player they affectionately call Godzilla has a lot going on for him. First off he can actually play defense at 1B at a really high level. Maybe not the most important thing but a real plus nonetheless. He does perhaps have a bit of positional flexibility as its not entirely out of the realm of possibility that he could handle 3B or LF. With a bat like his that would be another very large plus. But of course the real reason for optimism is his bat. He has undoubtedly a top class power bat. He is patient enough to really work a pitcher and draw walks if the pitcher isn't throwing it across the plate and if the pitcher foolishly does leave something over the plate, its going to end up over the wall as he has tremendous power potential. And at 21 years old with all 3 of his rookie years in tact, the sky is the limit for Godzilla.