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WEEK 12

Looking to add some relief help, we went shopping. Checking the trade block, we saw Ryan River, and asked their GM to "make this work now", one of the options was Allen II, who I had signed to a minor league contract as 4th infielder insurance ... so the deal works for us.

Checked the waiver wire for more RP options and there was Jh. Lara. We already have Joel Lara as a late game reliever, and now we have another Jh. Lara.

With DeLatuer's CF defense decreasing after 2 injuries last season, Roman Anthony slid over to CF and DeLatuer to RF. I was thinking about possible upgrades to CF, as lesser D at that position really does seem to lead to a lot more doubles allowed.

So I was checking the "important messages", which were just the All-Star voting update, but I saw Merrill on there in 3rd place in the East for CF voting. I wondered if maybe they would trade Merrill, which we missed out on in free agency during the offseason. They were interested but wanted a bit more, so using the "make this workl now" function and some back and forth, and eventually they accepted this deal ... adding Hayles a decent reliever (but not this year) and minor league 2B, Garces, who is a solid player, but not better than any of our other options.

So, we'll see.

Merrill starts in CF for StL, Anthony starts in LF, Garces starts at 2B, and Hales is the setup man for Toronto.