TRADE - Cleveland At It Again, Acquires Brown From Rippers

The two most active managers in the Millennium League, Cleveland's Brian Feig and the New York Rippers Bill Hobbs, pulled off yet another deal between them, collaborating for the second time this season.  They had previously exchanged starting pitchers when Mike Hampton went to the Rock 'N Rollers for Wade Miller.  These two teams have combined for 11 deals so far on the young season.  Brian has been especially busy of late, making four trades in a little over a week.  Let's take a look at their most recent transaction.

CLEVELAND sends Freddy Garcia, Rich Aurilia, Marty Cordova and their 2001 3rd round pick
to the
NY RIPPERS for Kevin Brown, Rey Sanchez and BJ Surhoff

Cleveland manager Feig is doing everything he can to make his team better to contend in the current season.  The Rock 'N Rollers record at the time of their first deal was 17-19, and while they are only 6-6 in their last 12 since that deal, they are 5-2 in their last seven games.  Things are only going to improve as the season unfolds.  They are currently five games back of Pittsburgh in the Classic League's Rust Belt Division, but their run differential of +36 is second only to the Crawfords in the entire CL.

New York is currently 7.5 games back of Boston in the CL's Metro Division.  Manager Hobbs has been the most active in the trade market, making six deals to date.  With the dealing away of Brown and Sanchez, the Rippers have traded away every single one of their first ten selections in the 2000 draft.  They have basically assembled an entire new lineup.  The highest remaining holdover from the draft is 11th round pick Gerald Williams.  One has to wonder if his days in a Rippers uniform is numbered??



The big name in this deal is 1st round pick Kevin Brown.  In the year 2000, the big right-hander was incredible, posting a league-leading 2.58 ERA and league-leading .991 WHIP.  He's very good again in 2001, posting a 2.65 ERA and 1.141 WHIP, but carries an F durability for that season.  He's injured in 2002, starting only ten games with a 4.81 ERA.  But he responds in a huge way in 2003 by posting a 2.39 ERA in 32 starts.  He has a decent 2004 for the Yankees before falling apart in 2005 and retiring the next year.  Brown joins Mike Hampton and Bartolo Colon at the top of the Rock 'N Rollers rotation.

Brown's Career Statistics:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/brownke01.shtml
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Rey Sanchez comes to Cleveland to provide one thing - defense.  In Rey's 15 year major league career, he never had an OPS+ number that reached the league average of 100.  As a matter of fact, the highest OPS+ number of his career was only 80 in 1994 for the Chicago Cubs.  His OPS+ in the year 2000 was only 61.  Where Sanchez excels is defensively.  He brings a B+/100/-5 defensive line to the Rock 'N Rollers.  In 2001, he actually improves to an A/100/-5 card line.  He moves positions in 2002 and has a couple of more decent years.

Sanchez's Career Statistics:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/sanchre01.shtml
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The final piece coming to Cleveland is left-fielder BJ Surhoff, who posted a respectable .291/.344/.443 triple slash line in 2000.  In 1999, Surhoff was an All-Star for the only time in his 19 year career.  2000 was arguably his best offensive season.  His .839 OPS was the second highest of his career.  But his days are certainly numbered.  In 2001, he is below average, compiling an 84 OPS+.  He only has 75 at-bats in 2002.  He bounces back somewhat in 2003-2004, but probably only enough to provide a bench presence.  He's out of baseball following the 2005 season.

In Cleveland, Surhoff joins a crowded outfield that includes Richard Hidalgo, Terrance Long, Raul Mondesi, David Justice and Wil Cordero.  He does have some value though in 2000, even if it is in a bench role.

Surhoff's Career Statistics
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/surhob.01.shtml
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Coming to New York are three players who have outstanding seasons in 2001.  The first of which is Freddy Garcia.  While he by no means is Kevin Brown, Garcia is pretty good nonetheless.   In 2000, he is nowhere near as good as Brown, but in 2001, Garcia had the best season of his 19 year MLB career.  In that year, he went 18-6 with a 3.05 ERA for the 116 win Seattle Mariners.  He was an All-Star in that season as well as in 2002, when he posted a 4.39 ERA in 34 starts.  From 2002-2006, Garcia averaged 14 wins with a 4.18 ERA and 1.267 WHIP.  He is injured in 2007 and misses most of the next three seasons.  He returns in 2010 to finish his career with a couple decent years.  He, along with Wade Miller, will sit atop the Rippers rotation.

Garcia's Career Statistics
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/garcifr03.shtml
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Replacing Sanchez in the Rippers lineup will be Rich Aurilia.  Comparing these two offensively is like comparing apples to oranges.  Aurilia hit 85 home runs between 2000 and 2003 (21/yr) with a combined .805 OPS.  Sanchez hit 15 homers in his entire 15 year career.  His highest OPS in a single season was .682.  Aurelia though is lacking defensively.  He's not terrible, mind you, but he's not Sanchez either.  His range tops out at a C+ rating.


Aurilia's 2001 season is really something.  He led the National League in hits with 206.  His triple slash line was .324/.369/.572.  That equates to an OPS of .941 from the shortstop position.  He belted 37 doubles and 37 homers.  For his efforts, he was awarded the Silver Slugger award, and he was an All-Star for the only time in his 15 year career. He normalizes from 2002-2004 before having a couple more good season in 2005-2006 for the Reds.

Aurilia's Career Statistics
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/a/aurilri01.shtml
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Marty Cordova provides next to nothing for the 2000 season.  He only hit .245 with a .327 OBP.  His outfield arm is rated a +3 so he not valuable in the field.  But in 2001, he turns things around.  As a matter of fact, he had the best season of his career that year, topping his 1995 year in which he won the American League Rookie-of-the-Year award.  His triple slash in 2001 was .301/.348/.506.  His arm rating is neutral so he's not a liability in the field.  He follows up in 2002 with a decent season before retiring in 2003


Cordova's Career Statistics
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/cordoma01.shtml
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DEAL SUMMARY
Here is another example of Brian making a deal to improve his team this year.  Adding Brown to his rotation to go along with Bartolo Colon and Mike Hampton gives him probably the best top-end staff in the league.  Brown is a difference maker.  He comes to the Rock 'N Rollers having compiled a 2.78 ERA in 12 starts for New York, striking out 88 batters in 81 innings.  Hampton has a couple of down years in 2001-2002 while pitching in Colorado.  But in 2003, these three all have outstanding seasons.

Brian has addressed his lineup in previous deals, adding Edgardo Alfonzo and Jason Kendall.  The addition of Sanchez, an excellent glove at the most important infield position, is a nice move. The lineup around Sanchez can provide enough offense. Surhoff will likely provide a proven bat off the bench, with the ability to start when necessary.

It's really hard not to like what the Rock'N Rollers have done in the span of a couple weeks.  The lineup now boast four Clutch rated batters, while the staff has six Jam rated pitchers.  This team is going to make the playoffs this season.  It's hard to imagine them not.  And while Brian has traded away some future pieces, it's not like he's completely mortgaged the team's future.  Brown has a couple of excellent season left in the tank, with ERA's of 2.65 and 2.39.  Hampton and Alfonzo each have a couple nice seasons left.  And Kendall is a quality catcher for another half-dozen years.

In the end though, I believe Brian is doing everything he can to win it all in 2000.  The fact that he's been able to add to his team without dealing many of his top picks is unbelievable.  As a matter of fact, Cleveland still has nine of their first 14 picks on the roster from the draft.  The only player gone from the first five rounds is Garcia, who was drafted in the 3rd round.  He's added a 1st rounder in Brown as well as two 2nd rounders in Hampton and Kendall.  Alfonzo was picked in the 6th round.  It's hard to imagine that Brian could have done any better.

The Rippers, as noted before, have revamped their entire team.  With this move, it looks as if Bill may have an eye on the future.  All three of the players acquired in this deal are excellent in 2001.  He also added a 3rd round draft pick which will likely add a bullpen arm or bench player.

Determining a winner of this deal is difficult, as the two teams are trading for different reasons.  The prize of the deal though is obviously Brown.  He's a bonafide ace, top of the rotation prize.  The Rippers, have added three quality pieces who are excellent next season.  If we add up the rounds that each player was drafted, we find that Cleveland received a 1st, 10th and 18th round pick, while New York added a 3rd, 6th and 21st.  Add those up and we can grade Cleveland as adding 29 round points compared the Rippers 30.  That's about as even as you can get.  New York also added a 3rd round pick from Cleveland., which even this deal out even more.

For grading purposes, we will say that Cordova for Surhoff is a wash. Aurilia is far better than Sanchez, despite the difference in defensive ability.  And while Brown is better than Garcia now, the future shows us that Brown only has probably 2.5 good season's left (excellent season's really), while Garcia is a solid pitcher for another 6-8 years.  So while Brown is the bonafide prize of the deal, it looks like Brian had to pay the price to get him.  I'd say Bill grades out slightly better based on the strength of 2001 cards he received, as well as the length of Garcia's career.  But again, Brian is the definite winner in our current season.  His moves have made him one of the front-runners in my estimation to take down the inaugural MBL title.

TEAM SPOTLIGHT - New York Rippers

In this spot, I will try to do a detailed analysis on individual teams throughout the year.  Our initial installment of the Team Spotlight series will focus on the New York Rippers.  Managed by Billy Hobbs, the Rippers have proven to be a team not afraid to make a deal in the early going.  They started the season out a little slow, but as of this writing, they have won six of their last seven contests.  The surge though has not allowed them to escape the cellar in the tough Metro Division of the Classic League.  Their overall record of 19-23 has them sitting a full six games back of the Boston Beaneaters atop the standings.  Let's dig in and see how the Rippers have gotten to where they are so far.

BEAUTIFUL CAMDEN YARDS - HOME OF THE RIPPERS

DRAFT RECAP

1st Round Pick Kevin Brown is the only
remaining draft pick on the team
from New York's first nine selections.

It's hard to judge how well the Rippers drafted because more than half of the names that were called on draft day have either been traded or released.  Not 40 games into the young season, New York has traded away eight of their first nine draft picks.  The only one remaining of the bunch is 1st round pick Kevin Brown.  To say that Billy has been busy trying to put together the best team possible would be an understatement.  Gone from rounds 2-7 are Mike Hampton, Benito Santiago, Robert Person, Larry Walker, Armando Benitez, Edgar Martinez, Bobby Higginson and Aaron Boone.  In their place are Manny Ramirez, a 1st round pick from Houston, Scott Rolen (2nd round HOU), Jermaine Dye (5th ARZ), Mike Sweeney (6th ARZ), Wade Miller (9th CLE), Rondell White (13th BAL) and Bobby Estallela (14th HOU) to name a few.  The acquisition of Ramirez gives the team two 1st round picks on the roster.  Billy turned his 4th round pick in Person, plus Boone and Cal Ripken into Rolen, a 2nd round selection.  One deal though left New York with a little less value than where they started.  2nd round pick Hampton was traded straight up for Miller, a 9th round selection.  It's hard to keep up with all the player movement on this team, but all-in-all, it looks like the Rippers are making improvements to the roster from where they started initially after the draft.

TEAM OFFENSE

	R	RPG	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	SB	CS	BA	OBP	SLG
LEAGUE AVERAGE	201	5.2	368	76	8	41	193	152	279	19	8	.271	.349	.431
New York Rippers	201	4.8	402	66	8	46	191	125	284	46	24	.271	.334	.420
RANKS		19				7				3		13	21	13

As we look at their offense we see that the team currently is slightly below average in runs per game, scoring at a 4.8 RPG clip compared to the league average of 5.2.  They get to that mark despite currently ranking third in the league with 46 stolen bases compared to the league average of only 19 per team.  They are also slightly above average in hitting home runs, ranking seventh in the league.  Where the Rippers fall short is getting on base.  The team batting and slugging averages are right in the middle of the pack, but their on-base percentage is 15 percentage points below the league average, and a full 50 points behind league leading San Francisco.

TEAM PITCHING

	CG	SV	BS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	SO	WHIP	ERA
LEAGUE AVERAGE	2	10	4	343	368	201	185	41	152	279	1.51	4.84
New York Rippers	2	11	5	381	377	218	196	39	227	330	1.59	4.63
RANKS		8						11		2	20	11

The pitching for the Rippers is a little better than average.  Although the team WHIP of 1.59 is below the mean, the team ERA of is almost a quarter of a run better than the league average.  Where New York excels is at striking out opposing batters.  The team currently ranks second in Ks with 330, second only to division rival Brooklyn, who employ the league leader in the category in Randy Johnson.  The Rippers bullpen is performing slightly better than their starters, with an ERA of 4.35 in relief as opposed to 4.79 for the starters.  With all of the trades and player movement, New York has used 12 different pitchers to start games through their first 42 games.

INDIVIDUAL PERFORMANCES

KEVIN BROWN

It's hard to judge the individual performances too well for the Rippers franchise since only a handful of players have been with the team from the start of the season.  One who has is 1st round pick Kevin Brown, who despite having a mediocre 3-3 record, has been very good through his first nine starts.  He ranks 4th in the Classic League with a 2.95 ERA, 5th in innings pitched with 61, and is 4th in strikeouts with 64.  He's pitched well in a couple of no decisions thus far, including a 10 IP performance on April 13th against the cross-town rival NY Bombers where he allowed only six hits and one earned run while striking out 12.  The Rippers ended up losing that game 4-1 in 13 innings.  His only bad outing on the year was a really bad one on April 24th against Cleveland.  Brown couldn't get out of the 1st in that game, giving up four earned runs in 2/3 of an inning.  If you back that outing out of his year so far, his ERA would be a league leading 2.38.


Another pitcher who has excelled in the early going is reliever Dan Miceli.  The right-hander did not save a game in real life in the year 2000, but when New York traded away Armando Benitez, Miceli was forced into the closers role.  He already has eight saves now on the young season for the Rippers.  His total ranks him 3rd in the Classic League.  Miceli has been tough to score on through the first month plus, allowing only two earned runs to cross in 17 innings of work.  That equates to a crisp 1.06 ERA.  Getting the ball to Miceli has been a different matter altogether, as Doug Creek (6.75 ERA), John Wettland (6.05) and Mike Holtz (4.35) have all struggled getting outs.  Billy has acquired help though with recent acquistions Todd Jones, Turk Wendell and Tom Martin.  Those three have combined to toss 25.1 innings while allwoing only four earned runs.


Offensively, the Rippers only land a couple players on the leaderboards.  One did half of his production with another team.  That player is first baseman Mike Sweeney, who came over in a trade with the Arizona Apaches at the end of April.  Sweeney is currently ranked 4th in all of the MBL with 62 hits.  For the Rippers, he's batting .354 with an .854 OPS in 21 games.



The other player who is ranked thus far is Damien Easley, who sits 5th in the Classic League with nine stolen bases.  He has yet to be thrown out on the basepaths.  Easley has played in all of the Rippers 42 games, and while he is only hitting .230, he has clubbed five homers and scored 27 times, both leading the team.  His double-play partner, Rey Sanchez, has also played in all of New York's 42 games.  Sanchez is hitting .260 on the season.


The Rippers offense going forward will be built around outfielder Manny Ramirez, who in the year 2000 was at the beginning of a run in which he finished in the top-10 in MVP voting eight straight years.  For New York, he's only played in 12 games, but he's been on fire.  In 40 ABs, he's batting .425 with a 1.336 OPS, belting four home runs to go along with four doubles.  His future is obviously bright, and he should remain a fixture in the Rippers lineup for years to come.  Unless of course trader Bill gets the urge to deal him away.


ENDING ANALYSIS
It's hard to predict how things will play out in Ripper-Land with all the player movement taking place, but I believe the deals that Bill has made have improved his club in both the short term and long run.  Being able to acquire both Ramirez and Rolen for the lineup is huge, as both are very productive now and in the future.  Kevin Brown remains as a top-flight staff ace.  The bullpen is a little suspect, but who's bullpen isn't?  Although the record is only 19-23, they are moving in the right direction.  They play in a tough division though, with very good pitching throughout.  It's gonna be a tough road to pass all three teams in the division to get to the top.  Billy and the Rippers may be playing out the season in search of a wildcard birth.  Only time will tell if they can make that happen.