May 6, 2009
Black Tuesday
I should have waited. I mean what were the chances?I told Howard Nemeroff, the GM of his Back Seat Long Drivers I would trade him Geovanny Soto and Ross Olendorf for starting pitcher John Lackey. I had done my due diligence. Howard made the offer and I said I wanted to do the trade but I just wanted to see how John Lackey pitched in his rehab start tonite. But instead I decided to accept the deal last night before I went to bed. Sure, I thought, I could wait for Lackey to pitch tomorrow night but from everything I could decipher Lackey’s rehab was routine. Sure accepting the deal now would hasten the departure of Ross Olendorf who was pitching great but his next start was against Albert Pujols and the Cardinals. What if he gets torched and Howard takes the deal off the table? Better to lock in the deal now.
So when the New York Times reported that Jorge Posada, the reason I am able to trade Geovanny Soto, had left the game with a serious hamstring injury my jaw dropped. Then I starting figuratively kicking myself. Why had I approved the deal last night? If only I had waited for Lackey’s start, I could have delayed the deal until Posada came back.
Another problem — my DL list is full. Our league generously provides each team with 5 DL spots and in spite of this, the DL infirmary is full to bursting.
* A-Rod is on the DL but is due to come back on Friday.
* Vlad is on the DL for about another 3 or more weeks.
*Jose Valverde is on the DL with a calf strain.
* Dice K is still rehabbing his shoulder and will be out another 2 or 3 weeks.
*Ben Sheets is recovering from elbow surgery and won’t be back until the All Star Break.
So maybe I can’t do anything about Posada. I have traded Soto and Olendorf to Howard for Lackey and will gain a roster spot when the trade is implemented on Friday, May 8th or Saturday May, 9th when the trade review process is completed and will gain a roster spot that I was saving for A-Rod. When A-Rod comes off the DL it opens up a spot for Posada. In our league 3 GMs can void a trade if they believe it is collusive but there is no chance the deal will be voided so the wait until it clears is all I need to anticipate. So worst case I am without a catcher for 3 days. Now that I think of it, I doubt delaying the trade for Lackey would have hurt me because Geovanny Soto is basically unusable in our league. Projected by our league web site, CBSsports.com to hit 28 homers with a .290 average and 94 RBIs, Soto is actually just hitting just .166 with zero homers and just 4 RBIs. Soto is definitely suffering from some kind of shoulder issue, a problem that forced Soto to the bench for a few games a couple of weeks ago. The shoulder is sapping his power evidenced by the zero homers in April and May. He also appears to be out of shape compared to last season. Olendorf is the only player I am sorry to see go. He is pitching really well and Howard will at least get some use out of him right away even if Soto continues his not hitting ways. John Lackey pitches 4 innings in a minor league rehab start tonight. If all goes well, he is probably a couple of weeks away from returning to the majors. In the meantime, I have to figure out a way to get a catcher in the lineup right away. I could drop LaTroy Hawkings who is currently closing games while Valverde is out. Hawkins is pitching well. He has 3 saves, 11 Ks in 12 innings and fewer hits than innings pitched. What if he gets picked up? He probably won’t be. When Valverde was placed on the DL the free agent predators like Joe Caron, GM of the Roswell Intruders and Shaun Glomb of the Chicago Baseball Furies, among others may have circled Hawkins but didn’t swoop in. If I dropped Hawkins for 3 days and then attempted to picked him up could I get him back? What are my chances? I am sitting 8th on the waiver wire priority list and that means that 7 other GMs would have priority to claim him over me. If I waived Hawkins today I would have to wait 2 days to pick him back up. Is it worth it? Meanwhile, my bullpen problems seems to be working themselves out on their own. Kevin Gregg is starting to get on a roll. He has earned 3 saves in a week and hasn’t imploded, hasn’t blown saves although he is still likely to walk a batter or give up a hit each time he goes out there. LaTroy Hawkins is filling in nicely for Valverde. Mike Gonzalez can almost be called ‘reliable’ and Houston Street is holding onto the job in Colorado. I now have 4 closers and in most seasons I just go with 2. The problem is that my closers with the exception of Jose Valverde are not exactly “lock down” closers. Instead, Gonzalez, Street and Kevin Gregg are all volatile in the extreme yet I know that early in the season a lot of closers suffer from rust. They typically pitch maybe 10 or 11 innings in the spring and it takes them a while to get in a groove. My thinking is if I can stash these guys on my bench until they get more innings under their belt that eventually they or someone else will settle in.
But what about Hawkins? Could I drop him? I have 3 other closers and don’t have enough appearances for all 4 closers.
I mulled this over for hours. Finally, I came to a difficult decision.
I am going to drop LaTroy Hawkins and try to pick him up later.
Bye-Bye Latroy. Hello Ivan Rodriguez.
Losing Jorge Posada is not something that ever occurred to me. Not once did it ever occur to me that Jorge Posada could tweak his hamstring.
