By
Rene Custeau
The Aspen
Rainmakers have made several off-season moves to make an
attempt to pull
themselves out of the gutter and into contention for the 2009
BRASSWORLD
title. They knew going into the Free Agency draft that they were
in desperate
need of a couple of power hitters and a whole new bullpen. They
had only
retained two relievers (Dave Borkowski and Mike
Gonzalez) from last
season and they
both would be considered “mop-up” at best.
First,
they dealt away starting pitcher Ryan Dempster to
Kelly Shoppach, Chris Carter and
gave the
Rainmakers a young catcher to relieve Jason Kendall and provide the
team with some
added pop. “It was tough giving up Dempster but we
only had
him signed
for the season and thought the deal was the right direction for the
team,”
elaborated
favorite here and
we took a lot of flack but the team had only produced 120
wins over the
past two seasons so something had to be done.”
With Dempster gone the Rainmakers still have four pretty damn
good
starting pitchers
in Rich Harden, Adam Wainwright, Kevin Slowey and
Scott
Kazmir. They next
made a trade with Henry Vance of the Greenheads to pick
up slugging
leftfielder, Alfonzo Soriano.
Kendrick,
lefty relief
specialist Matt Thornton. They gave up a lot but it was the
acquisition of
Next, they
picked up
complement
round draft
pick. Wheeler was the second pitcher added to
GM, Bench
then opened up owner Rene Custeau’s wallet and spent
several millions
of dollars in Free Agency, signing 2nd baseman Orlando Hudson
and 3rd
baseman Chone Figgins.
Scutaro
at second and freeing him up to backup everyone else. Figgins would
give the
Rainmakers some speed at the top of the lineup and replaced
disappointing Kevin Kousmanoff at 3rd. This move solidified the Rainmakers
infield. They now
had Connor Jackson at first, Hudson at 2nd, Figgins at 3rd
with Jhonny Peralta and Jason Bartlet
battling for shot.
Bench also
signed 3 more significant relievers Grant Balfour, Darrin
Oliver, and Mike
Adams. With these signings it could be said that the
Rainmakers
have assembled the best middle relief crew this league has every
seen. Next,
they signed starting pitcher, Hiroki Kuroda to replace the loss of
Ryan Dempster and will complement the rest of the starting
staff.
With all
the moves mentioned above the Rainmakers still needed the
one big bat
in the middle of the lineup. With their infield all set they needed to
find an outfielder
with some considerable pop. There really wasn’t anything
left in the
Free Agency so they turned toward other teams looking for a trade.
“We had
inquired very early on about Adam Dunn’s future in
were
interested in starting pitching and had mentioned Dempster,
Blanton and
Cha Seung Baek,” Bench was quoted as
saying. “When GM Peter Blake
contacted us
(Rainmakers) we had already dealt Dempster and weren’t
willing
to part with
Blanton so it was Baek who was shipped to the Bum’s
for Dunn.
With Dunn
now anchoring the middle of
with Soriano in left, Winn in center and Dunn in right.
So, the
Rainmakers added two big bats and a slugging catcher to their
lineup (Soriano, Dunn & Shoppach) as
well as rebuilding their bullpen.
(Wheeler,
Thornton, Oliver, Adams, & Balfour). They have replaced starter
Ryan
Dempster for Hiroki Kuroda and added Figgins & Hudson to their infield.
Who knows
if they will be able to win it all next year? One thing we can say for
sure is they
have worked hard at assembling a team that will definitely be
much more
competitive than the last two seasons and, with a little luck,
compete for the
infamous BRASSWORLD title.
2009
Chone Figgins, 3B
Randy
Winn, CF
Alfonzo Soriano, LF
Adam Dunn,
RF
Connor
Jhonny Peralta,
SS
Kelly Shoppach, C
2009
Hiroki
Kuroda, SP
Kevin Slowey, SP
Scott Kazmir, SP
Rich
Harden, SP
Adam
Wainwright, SP
2009
Dan
Wheeler, RP
Matt
Thornton, RP
Grant
Balfour, RP
Mike
Adams, RP
Darrin,
Oliver, RP