Let's Make a Deal

Sitting on the BABI’s main page at TQStats in the main message box is the following commercial advertisement:

At 11:06 on 6/25/2005, All Tease Falkuhns wrote:

Those who don't want major dump deals better get on the phone. There are only two teams talking to us, so all our players could go to them.

And make some decent offers, for gosh sakes.

Ophelia Butts, General Manager of the Falkuhns

Ophelia’s having trouble moving players for keepers. They have the major league home run leader, a perennial all-star power hitter who qualifies at both 1B and OF, an injured perennial all-star power hitter who qualifies at both 3B and OF, and a couple of current closers. And yet, they Falkuhns don’t seem to be able to close a deal.

It may be because they’ve wrapped up all their hopes in working out a deal with Hobo. Word is most of their pieces have been offered in a single deal for a premier starter and an excellent closer. Of course, we’re limited in our sources, so it’s quite possible that not all of these pieces have actually been offered. It could just be grousing that the deal making isn’t going too well.

Apparently the hang up is that Hobo has been talking to the Busch Leaguers. The rumor is that they may send Roy Oswalt to the Leaguers for some hitting. Both teams are trying to be economical with their 2006 material, and do not want to start next season with nothing in the tank. So the dumpers aren’t getting the business that a close 7 team race should inspire. After all, it’s just supply and demand, and there isn’t much supply.

In the end, though, prices require a willing buyer and a willing seller to agree. So far, they’re not agreeing. It may be, of course, that Hobo thinks they are the only players in town with the Falkuhns, and we’re here to testify that they may be right. We’ve had lots of connections with Larry Dot Net, but we haven’t even had any kind of a trade proposal made. It’s our opinion that we aren’t on the Falkuhns’ radar, but they’re stringing us along in case everything breaks down completely and also to be phantom competition for their real target. Hey, we need BA, HR and RBI’s and saves. We’re here, we’ve been here all season. Stop whining to us that you’re not getting what you want if you don’t want to deal with us.

Meanwhile, we have to admit we’re concerned about the Leaguers getting Oswalt. We hope that Hank and Noel know better than to make a deal like that. Oswalt could be worth a dozen points to the Leaguers. If you trade Oswalt, you’ve traded to Jeff one of maybe 5 pitchers in the NL that can make the difference for his team. That could mean big jumps in ERA, WHIP and Wins. Even if Hobo improves their team, they have to be conscious of how much they help a very dangerous competitor. And, although Reggie Sanders is having a career year, he’s going to be 38 this year and he’s always been a first half player. Always. As Sgt. Esterhaus used to say on Hill Street Blues, “be careful out there.”

I’m not exactly sure what the hell Any 9 did yesterday to jump to 69.5 points yesterday, but it must be an accumulation of several days activity. They did pick up 3 wins, 2 of which were pristine. This is the team that should scare everyone. They’ve got everything. They could use another closer, but this looks like a team that’s going down to the wire with good keepers for next year.

We jumped to 66 points yesterday despite Hector Carrasco blowing an easy chance at what would have been his second save this week. We’ve got 15 homers this week, but we got some ugly news: JD Drew, out 6-8 weeks with a broken wrist. This is the second Dodger outfielder broken wrist we’ve suffered this season (Jayson Werth), and 3rd Dodger outfielder wrist/hand injury (Milton Bradley). Drew, after a stunningly bad start, had really started to hit. He was up to 15 homers and .286, though he was fighting daily pains all over his body. I guess it’s good that we didn’t extend him, but this is a bad bit of news for the Pecklers. It means we’re going to have to clear the cupboards if we want to have a shot at this. What the hell, as I said before, we’re here.