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I was behind to start the season and taking a week off has put me further behind. So in order to catch up I am going to do a short post for the 2nd half of May and then work to move this forward. We will be at July 10th after Friday's sim so if I can do a week each day I will have this caught up to where we are in the league.
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The Architects go 11-2 down the the 2nd half of May including a sweep of falling Traverese City and taking 2 out of 3 at home against Duluth. Things even with the injuries to the starting pitching are going well.
We did suffer another injury where we lost a major player for a significant amount of time (approx 2-3 weeks). 3B Thomas Arnaud when down with hamstring tendinitis on May 21st. At the time of the injury Arnaud was hitting 327/386/933 with 8 home runs and 36 RBI's to go along with 30 runs scored. His absence in the lineup will be a blow, but we are bringing up 3B/2B Larry Davis (age-24 prospect #77). Between Davis and switch-hitting veteran Cruz Torres, we hope to make the best of the situation. Arnaud will return to the lineup around June 10th.
As you will see below we ended May with a 20-8 record which propelled us into 1st place in the South of the Border (US Division). The Architects are currently enjoying a 3 game lead over the defending 3-time regular season champs Toledo and Duluth is 6 games out of 1st. It looks likes it is going to be a 3-team dog fight for the title and the 2 playoff spots.
No new updates on our attempts to convince Jose Cedeno that his contract demands are out of line. He still wants $30 million per season and his arbitration estimate for next year is almost $32 million. He is 33 years old (and a lot of pitchers pitch well in this league into their 40's) so the decision will be, do we dare put out that much money? I know Thunder Bay and their unlimited cash seem to be interested in acquiring him if we sign him to an extension. Do I dare do a sign-n-trade deal? OSA figures he is the 10th best pitcher in the league and while his salary demands are on the high side of things, they are in the ballpark for proven veteran pitchers. His stats so far are underwhelming, but in this year of the hitter most pitchers stats are. Only superstar pitcher out there is 28-year-old Toronto Maples SP Montoyuki Inoue who is 8-2 with a 2.25 ERA. He is by far the best pitcher in this league. He is being paid $38 million and has a year of arbitration coming up in 2058 that has his estimate pegged at $48.2 million.
With our owner seemingly less upset with me (he is currently just worried), maybe its time to spend money again.
One more thing for this month, we made a trade. We sent veteran 2B/3B/SS Ken Noseworthy (33) who was in the last year of his deal to Thunder Bay. Could we have re-signed Noseworthy in the off-season? Probably, but it would take several things for it to have happened. He wanted a 5-yr $50 million dollar contract extension. We have our top prospect SS Cristo Sandoval nearing being big league ready and I suspect will make a splash next spring. With 2B/SS Walker Dunse having a player option that he might exercise, we could have re-signed Noseworthy or re-signed Dunse. Both are 33 and showing some signs of age. Noseworthy seems to struggle each odd year the last several and when he was traded he was hitting 212/328/734 with 8 home runs on a $13 million dollar contract.
At the end of the day we decided to trade him. We picked up an interesting glove first SS in Pedro Farrulla (23) who will come in and immediately get reps at SS with veteran Simon Lefevre (37). Farrulla is a great glove, but his hit tool leaves a lot to be desired. We also picked up a starting pitcher prospect #186 (Thunder Bay doesn't have many prospects left) in SP Stan Storey (24). Storey was 7-3 with a 3.34 ERA in 86IP at AAA and I see him as more insurance and potentially a useful swingman arm in the very near future. Finally we got a 3rd player in the deal that might have been a bit of a headscratcher, but he is a favorite of mine. Last year we picked up OF/DH Doug Deschamps (32) on a minor league deal and promoted him prior to roster expansion. He then was also on our post-season roster as well. He had some key hits for us and is popular with our fanbase, so we asked to bring him back in this deal when Thunder Bay beat us to signing him right before the start of the season. With the move Walker Dunse will move back to 2B where is he definitely more comfortable. Arguably we improved our up the middle defense in this move with Dunse/Farrulla at 2B and SS respectively.
The trade of Noseworthy also gave us some financial wiggle room if we need to make a trade deadline deal. We have roughly $9 million now in budget space and Mr. Bocquet Jr. seems happier with that.