Right after I was fortunate enough to swing a deal for the great Roy Halladay I was doubly lucky to get him in my redraft league as well. To recap, I have the most hitting points in this league and the least pitching points and sit in 5th or 6th place depending on the day, about 30 points out of first. I traded for Yovani Gallardo last week and he's been great for me so far, but he won't be enough for me to make a serious run for the money.
On Friday night, the owner of team Chin Music, who had been comfortably in first place the entire season called me freaking out as his team has been ice cold and for the first time all year dropped to 2nd place. He was in full on panic mode. He had to make a deal "tonight". I was happy to oblige. He started with offering me Roy Oswalt and Pablo Sandoval for Aramis Ramirez. I couldn't say 'yes' fast enough, and I think my eagerness scared him off. I didn't worry though, I knew how desperate he was and that I would be able to make a deal seriously in my favor. After a ton of back and forth over the next twelve hours we had a deal. I sent him my best hitter, Nelson Cruz, and the resurgent yet still just blah Aramis Ramirez for Roy Halladay, Alfonso Soriano, and Jorge Cantu. Let's take it player by player:
Cantu - not great by any means, but recently traded to the monstrous Texas Rangers lineup which will give him a little boost. Considering how poor A-Ram's been overall this could well turn out to be a wash or even in my favor. A-Ram had a monster week 2 weeks ago but since then he's been back to his .167 hitting ways. Obviously A-Ram is the better player and I'd prefer to own him, but considering the rest of the deal I could do worse than Cantu.
Soriano - old man still has some pop. Due to Nelson Cruz's two stints on the DL Soriano actually has better power numbers to date. Cruz kills him in steals, but I don't need steals. I have a comfortable first place lead there so the category is useless to me. Looking forward I can see roughly the same amount of homers from Soriano as I do Cruz, but far less RBI. Cruz is a RBI machine while Soriano is hitting in the punchless Cubs lineup.
So on the offensive side, its a clear loss for me - but its a strategic one and based on the way the categories are stratified I can handle this loss. Now, I introduce you to the big fella. Roy Halladay - the best in the biz. He debuted for my squad last night by throwing seven innings of one run ball and 9 strikeouts for the Win. Huge. I need this every time out from him and believe it or not that's not too much to ask for. Considering I am in last place in ERA and WHIP, and second to last in Wins, the Halladay and Gallardo additions over the last two weeks give my team considerable upside down the stretch. Now, don't get me wrong, I realize more than 2/3 of the season has been played and ratios are the hardest stats to improve this late in the game, but by adding two aces who can conceivably give me 150+ innings of a sub-3 ERA and 1.15 WHIP, I am still cautiously optimistic that I can make a run. Call me crazy. Brett Anderson is also just off the DL (again), so it is like I am wheeling out a brand new staff to end the season. I'm excited.
One other transactional note - I picked up Alex Gordon for no good reason when he got called back up from the minors a few weeks ago. Thanks to injuries and whatnot he is my starting 3rd Basemen these days and has four homers in the past week. This kid was a beast of a prospect and a lot of kids don't come right up and produce, they bounce around the minors and majors for a few years before they find their way. I'm hoping that's what is going on here and Gordon has finally found his way which could be huge for me to help offset the loss of Cruz and Ramirez.
Another thing - in the Gallardo deal I gave up my 2nd best offensive player, Kevin Youkilis. This killed me because the guy is just so damn reliable. Turned out to be the best move I could make as he hit the DL yesterday and is likely out for the season with a thumb injury. I feel horrible for the other team, that really sucks for them, but I really caught a break there. If I was still holding Youk and didn't have Gallardo? Oh man, season would be wayyyyy over right now but instead I feel revived and poised to make a nice little late-season run. Every year there's one team that is so far out of it but somehow puts together a few monster weeks to climb back in. I want to be that team. I am going to be that team.
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