[bengalmike17]

Entry #4 The Month of May
Up to this point we were 15-14, which put us in third place in our division. So let's get going with the second month of the season. Wilin Rosario put on a surprising power show the first month of the season, and if he keeps this pace up, he could possibly hit 50 bombs this year.


A few days in I again tried to fish for offers for Tulowitzki, and I finally got some teams to bite. I was offered players like Justin Upton, Chris Davis, Adam Jones, Mookie Betts, Garin Cecchini, Philip Ervin, and more. I did the same with Gonzalez and again got plenty of bites. There were many impressive players offered, but the one that caught my eye was Joey Gallo. Gallo currently is 20 years old in AA ball, and is rated 21 overall now, with the potential to be a 74. OSA has him rated a little lower, but I trust my scout a bunch.


The draft pool was revealed today, and the top ten list came out with it. The OSA has the following players in their top ten draft prospects list:

• Max Pentecost, 21 year-old catcher out of college.
• Derek Hill, 18 year-old center fielder out of high-school.
• Grayson Greiner, 21 year-old catcher out of college
• Monte Harrison, 18 year-old center fielder out of high-school.
• Justin Bellinger, 18 year old first baseman out of high-school.
• A.J. Reed, 20 year-old first baseman out of college
• Aramis Garcia, 21 year old catcher out of college.
• Carlos Rodon, 21 year-old starting pitcher out of college.
• Bradley Zimmer, 21 year-old center fielder out of college.
• Jakson Reetz,18 year-old catcher out of high school.

Blockbuster Deal!
I finally found a suitor for Troy Tulowitzki in the Boston Red Sox. We agreed on a five for five deal that sent a number of highly valued prospects to us. I was able to dump over $24 mm of salary for the current season, as well as the $114 mm still left on Tulo's contract. The full deal looked like this:
Rockies Send:
Troy Tulowitzki
Drew Stubbs
Michael Cuddyer
Evan Frey
Juan Nicasio


Red Sox send:
Mookie Betts
Luis Alexander Basabe
Rafael Devers
Wendell Rijo
Garin Cecchini
Tai Ban, our scout, has high praise for Mookie Betts, rating his potential at 79/80. In his scouting report, he went as far as to say that as long as Betts stays healthy, he has a shot at the Hall of Fame. In his report he also said that Betts has almost no flaws in his hitting and that he should be pretty good very soon. Next, Ban went to scout Luis Alexander Basabe. Basabe is a 17 year-old center fielder. Ban says he has the potential to be rated 79/80. In his scouting report, Ban says that Basabe is a scout's dream who projects to have stardom ahead of him. Plus power and a great eye are just a couple of the tools that are impressive with Basabe. Rafael Devers is up next. The 17 year-old third baseman has the potential to be an 80/80 player. Ban says Devers could be one of the most dominant hitters of the next ten to 15 years. He says that Devers projects to hit about .310 in the majors with plus plus power. Wendell Rijo was also one of the prospects acquired in the trade. Ban gives him a rating of 21/80 currently, with the potential to be a 74/80 player. Ban raved about Rijo's tools, saying that he knows how to use them and he thinks that Rijo could be a star. Good tools could carry him to the majors. The second baseman is 18 years old. Last but not least is Garin Cecchini. The third baseman is currently rated a 26 out of 80, but has the potential to be a 73. Ban says that he has impact potential on offense, and that he could hit around .290 and will draw plenty of walks. All in all I think I got a pretty good haul.


Just as the dust was starting to settle, I finalized a deal with the Texas Rangers. I sent Carlos Gonzalez and a few other guys to the Rangers for several top prospects. In this deal, I also cleared up around $8 mm in budget space. The deal looked like this:


Rockies send:
LF Carlos Gonzalez
C Michael McKenry
SP Christian Friedrich
SS Josh Rutledge


Rangers send:
3B Joey Gallo
SS Luis Sardinas
SS Chris Bostick
3B Juremi Profar


Tai Ban gives Joey Gallo a potential rating of 63 out of 80. He says that Gallo has the tools to play at the top level and says that he is the prototypical clean-up hitter. Ban also noted that Gallo has a good eye. Ban focused on Luis Sardinas next. The 21 year-old shortstop has the potential to be a 72/80. He should be an average hitter with a good eye. His defense and speed are both well above average. He will constantly be a threat on the bases. Shortstop Chris Bostick was also a large part of the deal. He has the potential to be rated 74 out of 80. Ban calls him a natural on the field. He projects to be an average contact hitter who could hit 25 bombs every once in awhile. He is very good with the glove and he is a plus runner. He's also a gym rat. Juremi Profar (not to be confused with Jurickson Profar, the former top prospect) is the fourth prospect acquired for Gonzalez. Ban isn't as high on Profar as the rest of the league is, so I decided to trade for him anyways. Ban says he has the potential to be a 39/80 in the future, while the OSA says he could be a 74/80. Ban noted that there is a lot of raw potential here, but he doesn't think Profar can put it all together. Profar has above average contact potential and his approach at the plate is very nice.


Unfortunately, Corey Dickerson went down with an injury, which couldn't have happened at a worse time. Our roster is already very weak after all these trades went down, and now we lost another starter. Dickerson will be out for 5-6 weeks with a strained hamstring. Up until this point he was hitting .307 with four round-trippers and 17 RBIs.


I signed Casey Kotchman, Mike Lockwood, and Pedro Okuda to one year, $500k contracts to play at the major league level. All of them are rated as 21/80. We also claimed Don Kelly off of waivers from the Detroit Tigers.


All in all it was a busy month. We traded out two stars away for a haul of prospects. Three of our regular position players were not on the roster at the beginning of the season. Surprisingly, after all that has happened, we are 27-29. Not too bad. I took some big risks, a lot of those prospects are rated highly by my scout, but not by the OSA. I can't wait to see how my guys develop. I do trust Tai and usually go by what he says.


Major League News

• The Oakland A's sent Yoenis Cespedes and $3 mm to the Braves and received Ryan Doumit and Victor Caratini.
• Albert Pujols his his 500^th home run.
• The Diamondbacks traded Trevor Cahill to the Athletics and got prospects Daniel Robertson and Mel Rojas.
• The Diamondbacks and A's engaged in another trade, this time Arizona ships Aaron Shipman and Chris Kohler to Oakland and they'll receive Mark Trumbo in return.
• The Braves flipped Jordan Walden and $1.49 mm to the Royals for Cameron Gallagher and Daniel Rockett.
• The Orioles sent Wei-Yin Chen to the Twins for minor league pitcher Lewis Thorpe.
• The Pittsburgh Pirates announced they traded Harold Ramirez to the Orioles in exchange for Miguel Gonzalez and $529k in cash.
• The commisioners office confirmed that the Orioles acquired Justin Nicolino from the Marlins. The Orioles sent Zach Britton and $521k to the Marlins in the deal.
• The Mariners acquired AJ Ramos from the Marlins for Tyler Marlette and Johmbeker Morales.
• Pittsburgh acquired Al Alburquerque and Franklin Arias from the Pirates in exchange for Jose Tabata.
• The Phillies sent Jayson Nix to the Cardinals for Randy Choate and Luis M. Flores.
• James Paxton was shipped to Cincinnati and the Mariners will receive Ben Lively and Sal Romano in exchange.
• Minnesota sent Phil Hughes to Houston for Nolan Fontana and Telvin Nash.
• On May 28, 2014, Clayton Kershaw threw a no-hitter against the Cincinnati Reds. He was perfect except for one walk. He struck out 14 Reds as the Dodgers prevailed 2-0.
• Shelby Miller tossed a no-no on May 28^th as well. Miller blanked the Yankees in a 4-0 Cardinals win. He struck out 6 and walked 1.
• The Red Sox signed Jon Lester to a two-year extension worth $21 mm total.
• The White Sox sent Adam Dunn to the Pittsburgh Pirates in exchange for Tony Sanchez and Jin-De Jhang.
• The Rangers sent Leonys Martin to the Nationals and received Tanner Roark in return.
• Wily Peralta of the Brewers was sent to Pittsburgh in exchange for pitching prospect Tyler Glasnow.
• The Diamondbacks sent JJ Putz to San Francisco in exchange for Adalberto Meija, Chris Marlowe, and Ty Ross.
• Bryan Evans was traded to St. Louis with Edmundo Sosa going to Miami.
• Hisashi Iwakuma of the Seattle Mariners threw a perfect game on May 31, 2014. He defeated the Tigers 5-0 while striking out four. History was made!

Top Performances of the month

• Brandon Belt and Miguel Cabrera won the Batter of the Month award in their respective leagues.
• Justin Verlander was named the top pitcher in the AL for the month of May. Zack Greinke was named top pitcher in the NL in may.
• Josmil Pinto and Wilmer Flores won the AL and NL Rookie of the Month awards in their respective leagues.