[Westheim]

Before the Bayhawks came in, we considered making them an offer for David Lopez. Commonly playing third base, Lopez also had a lot of experience at first and in left field. Although he was 34, he was still an adept defender. He also led the Continental League with 23 home runs. He had 269 for his career. Plus, he was a right-handed batter.

But he was a bad choice. Not only was his contract bigger than Ron Alston’s at $2.44M a year, that contract would also run through 2011, his age 37 season. While we would have some trouble fitting Alston’s remaining contract for even 2008 into our budget, it would become borderline impossible with Lopez. Plus, the Bayhawks are also rebuilding. Most likely the last thing they wanted was to take on another big contract.

There weren’t that many top-of-the-line bats on hopeless teams. There were two on the Knights, Jose Morales and Jorge Garcia, but Morales was under team control, Garcia’s contract was quite favorable to the team, and they were merely 8 1/2 games out and not looking to sell.

So, Alston.

That gives our starting three as Alston-Castro-Black. Well, Alston has to play a corner. Castro has a weak arm. Black can play center, and Fletcher can play all three spots. Pruitt is another weak-armed guy and can only play left or first. But the odd man out would be Trevino. He has not been used as much else than a defensive backup for Castro, and if the gravest tradeoff we can make (other than potentially dealing away somebody on the big league roster) would be to lose our best defensive centerfielder, and we could haul in Alston, that would be - … don’t know, don’t know any words that express an outcome this perfect. Trevino wouldn’t be lost, he has options (Pruitt has options, too, but nah).

Our budget space was limited to $670k, less than what Alston was due over the remainder of the season. We had to make room of at least $119k in the trade, so minimum players like Cássio Boda weren’t getting us ahead by a lot.

The Indians had a Chris Kilters-shaped hole at third base, so they were insisting on a third baseman. They weren’t particularly picky about it, so I threw Daniel Sharp into the deal. Sharp’s remaining contract amounted to about $120k, so the deal was feasible financially. Now the Indians felt entitled to pick through our farm system, and Hector Santos was right up on their list. I tried to not give up Santos. Santos might not be The Next Big Thing, but perhaps just a sliver below that.

I told Ramón Pena, their GM, to come up with somebody else. Hey, how about Ryan Miller? He’s totally going to be a thing! Pena agreed, Miller was just a breakout waiting to happen. But it wasn’t enough. The thing was that the Indians weren’t interested much at all into our pitchers. They had a star in Curtis Tobitt, and a few other good starters, and a really strong bullpen. They didn’t need our spare parts like Boda. They were looking for hitting prospects. Or Santos. They’d dig Santos.

If Sharp is traded, we don’t need a third baseman back. My first reaction was to ask for Kilters in return in the deal, but we don’t need him. Melvin Pollack is a competent backup all around the infield, also for third base. We had a pair of Gutierrezes in AAA, both batting over .320 with no power, to happily take Sharp’s roster spot.

So, Ramón, if you get Sharp and Miller, whom else outside of Santos, Brown, and Umberger (always popular choices with other teams…) would you like?

Ramón liked Quebell, or Yoshi, or Castro, or … really? Really.

Or Jimmy Oatmeal.

My whiskers twitched in excitement.