{"id":379,"date":"2012-08-19T18:37:05","date_gmt":"2012-08-20T01:37:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/?p=379"},"modified":"2012-08-19T18:37:05","modified_gmt":"2012-08-20T01:37:05","slug":"moonshiners-make-a-splash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/?p=379","title":{"rendered":"Moonshiners Make a Splash"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Moonshiners catcher Miguel Montero<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

During the 2011 regular season, there was not a single trade completed in the DTBL.\u00a0 This year, things were back to normal with a handful of deals going down.\u00a0 This was not a surprising development since, unlike last year, more than half of the teams were still in title contention by the time the trade deadline arrived earlier this week.\u00a0 In total, five trades were completed.\u00a0 Three of them involved the Moonshiners, who are trying to make this the second consecutive season with a first time DTBL champion.\u00a0 Since I have not written about any of the these trades, I will recap them all right now, even the ones that were completed quite a while ago.<\/p>\n

Mavericks\/Darkhorses (June 6)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mavericks get:\u00a0 RP Matt Capps, P Matt Harrison<\/em><\/p>\n

Darkhorses get:\u00a0 P Ricky Romero, RP Daniel Bard<\/em><\/p>\n

I don’t think it is too early to say this trade his been quite a disaster on both sides.\u00a0 The Mavericks made this deal to try to get themselves another closer, but Matt Capps got hurt very soon after this trade and is yet to record a save for his new team.\u00a0 Meanwhile, the key piece going the opposite direction, Ricky Romero, has continued his dreadful season.\u00a0 The Darkhorses other acquisition, Daniel Bard, is buried in the minors where he can’t throw strikes.\u00a0 It is unclear if he will ever be a viable MLB pitcher again.\u00a0 As it turns out, the only player in this trade who has had any sort of value is Matt Harrison.\u00a0 But he was only included because the Darkhorses needed to clear out a roster spot.\u00a0 The Mavericks immediately released him.\u00a0 The Moonshiners swooped in and signed him later and he has had a very productive season for them.<\/p>\n

Mavericks\/Gators (July 11)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mavericks get:\u00a0 2B Dan Uggla<\/em><\/p>\n

Gators get:\u00a0 C Salvador Perez<\/em><\/p>\n

As Greg can confirm, I was not happy when I saw the details of this trade.\u00a0 I thought it was a steal for the Mavericks, primarily because they were able to fill a glaring hole (Dee Gordon had just gone on the DL, leaving them short a middle infielder) without giving up a player that had much value to them.\u00a0 But with hindsight being 20\/20, this was actually a pretty solid move for the Gators.\u00a0 Uggla is a batting average killer and isn’t even putting up particularly impressive power numbers anymore.\u00a0 In fact, since this trade was made, Perez has one more home run than Uggla.\u00a0 Perez is obviously a lot younger too, making him a better fit for the Gators future plans.\u00a0 That’s not to say this has become a bad trade for the Mavericks though.\u00a0 They had little use for Perez with Wieters and Santana anchoring their catching staff.\u00a0 Perhaps Uggla will go on one of his patented hot streaks before this season ends.<\/p>\n

Moonshiners\/Demigods (July 26)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Moonshiners get:\u00a0 RP Joe Nathan, 12th Round Pick<\/em><\/p>\n

Demigods get:\u00a0 2nd Round Pick<\/em><\/p>\n

There was a lot of activity around the trade deadline involving closers, but this was the only deal that actually got done (not counting the Capps trade in June).\u00a0 Out of contention for this season, the Demigods had little use for a 37 year old closer.\u00a0 So they were able to get a second round pick for him.\u00a0 If you are wondering what type of player this could turn out to be for the Demigods, here are two names of players picked in this year’s second round:\u00a0 Mike Trout and Gio Gonzalez.\u00a0 Maybe they won’t get that lucky, but there is too much opportunity there for them to have passed on a deal like this.\u00a0 Meanwhile, this was the first sign that the Moonshiners are truly “all in” for 2012.\u00a0 They are up to 5th in saves with a great opportunity to pick up another point before the year is over.<\/p>\n

Moonshiners\/Kings (August 15)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Moonshiners get:\u00a0 C Miguel Montero, P Edwin Jackson<\/em><\/p>\n

Kings get:\u00a0 P Dan Haren, 3B David Freese<\/em><\/p>\n

This was probably the biggest trade made this season, in part because it was the only one involving two teams in the championship chase.\u00a0 In fact, to see two teams so close to each other in the standings make a trade this big this late in the season is quite rare.\u00a0 The Moonshiners needed to find a catcher after losing both of their regulars (J.P. Arencibia and Mike Napoli) to injuries.\u00a0 Not only were they able to find one, but they got an upper echelon receiver in Montero.\u00a0 The Kings could afford to deal\u00a0 him because they had two other good, young catchers on their roster (Jonathan LuCroy and Wilin Rosario).\u00a0 On the flip side, the Kings have been struggling to find effective starting pitching all season.\u00a0 In many ways, Haren fits right in with the rest of the underachieving staff.\u00a0 However, he probably has more upside than anyone in their rotation not named Verlander.\u00a0 Although this was an attempt to get better now, the bigger upside for the Kings may be in the future.\u00a0 Freese returns to his original DTBL team to fill a need at 3B, which has been a black hole since ARod got hurt.\u00a0 Jackson could wind up being a huge pickup for the Moonshiners too, even though he was probably considered the least valuable player in the deal.<\/p>\n

Moonshiners\/Darkhorses (August 15)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Moonshiners get:\u00a0 OF Alex Rios, 11th Round Pick<\/em><\/p>\n

Darkhorses get:\u00a0 C Mike Napoli, 4th Round Pick<\/em><\/p>\n

The last trade, completed within the last couple hours before the deadline, was what the Moonshiners hope to be the final piece of their puzzle.\u00a0 They acquired the red-hot Rios for an injured catcher and a draft pick swap.\u00a0 Earlier this year, nobody would have guessed that a Napoli\/Rios swap would lead to the team acquiring Napoli also receiving the advantage in a draft pick exchange.\u00a0 But it has been a disappointing, and now injury hampered season for Napoli.\u00a0 He could be a key addition for the Darkhorses though as he is capable of supplying big time power from a very weak position.\u00a0 But for this season, Rios is obviously the player with more value.\u00a0 He is having a very productive season, following a truly dreadful 2011.\u00a0 The recent trend points to good seasons in even numbered years and poor seasons in odd years.\u00a0 So we’ll have to see what he provides the Moonshiners next year.\u00a0 But in the mean time, he could be a huge addition for the final month and a half of 2012.<\/p>\n

Finally, I want to end with a follow up to my previous blog post, which focused on the Stephen Strasburg situation.\u00a0 I knew this was going to be a big story, but didn’t expect major features coming out from every corner of the sports world the last few weeks.\u00a0 It has been discussed on nearly every sports program and web site.\u00a0 What I find fascinating is that the people who seem to have the most to lose (short term) from a Strasburg shutdown (the Nationals, their fans, and the DC sports media) seem to be the only ones who actually support the shutdown.\u00a0 Meanwhile, the so-called experts outside of DC seem to be unanimously opposed to the shutdown.\u00a0 This is almost exactly the opposite of what I expected.\u00a0 Hearing Rob Dibble and Tim McCarver give dimwitted declarations of opposition to the shutdown actually has me reconsidering my position.\u00a0 Do I really want to be on their side of this argument?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During the 2011 regular season, there was not a single trade completed in the DTBL.\u00a0 This year, things were back to normal with a handful of deals going down.\u00a0 This was not a surprising development since, unlike last year, more than half of the teams were still in title contention by the time the trade […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,12,5,9,3,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-darkhorses","category-demigods","category-gators","category-kings","category-mavericks","category-moonshiners"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=379"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":382,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379\/revisions\/382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}