Anatomy of a Blockbuster Deal

Last week among a few deals that were struck was a blockbuster between the Lickers and Hobo. For the most part the deal was negotiated between Lou’s new partner Rick and Noel. We have a tendency to always talk about “Lou’s Team”, but it’s clear from this deal that Rick is taking a much more active role than Larry’s Junior Partner (what the heck was his name again?).

I asked Noel if he would mind providing to Sour Grapes a blow by blow, which I present in italics below with a little editing. Any comments I make will not be in italics and be in . Thanks to Noel for this story, which took place over a long period of time, as will reading about it.

I had been talking to them for about a month. Rick is a good guy to deal with. The Hobos have traded with Lou almost every year that I have been in BABI, usually small deals, one or two players, to fill a need. I think the Lickers are one of the most underrated teams every year.

In early July, this deal started with Burnitz & Lawrence for J. Patterson & Sullivan.

After the Oswalt trade I started looking at our roster and realized we could probably make more points in ERA, Ratio & Wins with Patterson than we would lose in the hitting categories. Even though we were high in ERA & Ratio, I thought Patterson would be a difference maker. At least that was my thinking.

Once Doug sent out his Dump-Bomb email to the league, couple with the Hobos’ on-going slide into the mid-fifty point range, I knew we had to act. We could come in under the radar if we acted quickly. I had targeted two teams: the Cappers & the Lickers. Rick & Lou had a great draft. They waited until the end and got a ton of value.

I really wanted Capuano and Patterson for this year and next. We’re going to move up in wins with those two guys, plus we are sitting at 12 points in ERA & ratio. We lost Lawrence, Tomko and Tejada - that was the easy part.

About a week ago I threw out to Rick:

“How about Burnitz, Helton Tomko & Lawrence for Sullivan, Capuano & Patterson?”

Rick responded:

“Hey Noel, we’re very interested. We’d have to work a corner into the deal to take Helton’s spot.”

This is when it got interesting. I was heading to Tahoe on Wednesday for the rest of the week. I countered:

“What if we added Nevin & Dempster to the deal?”

This is when the blockbuster part started. Rick’s reply was great...

“Noel, how about this blockbuster ??

you give : nevin - you get : matheny ($2)
................ helton....................saenz/ j.baker ($3)
.................burnitz..................sullivan ($1)
.................wilkerson..............ellison ($1)
.................tomko....................capuano ($9)
.................lawrence................j. patterson($2)
.................tejeda....................dempster ($13)

I started looking at it. The more I looked, the more I liked it. The Lickers were getting a lot of hitting, but this helped us in Steals, Wins & Saves. We could not make up enough ground in HR’s & RBI’s, and we thought we should focus on these categories for this year. We are at 55 points today. I bet this improves us by the end of the year. I know Rick and Lou were happy, but so were Hank and I.

Now the hard part: Rick and I had to get Lou & Hank to sign off. Hank was in Napa, Lou’s in Vegas, and I was in Tahoe. This may have been BABI’s longest distance trade. Fortunately, the house in King’s Beach had a laptop with internet access. What a godsend! I could get email, and Hank’s phone numbers. One of the few things I leave home when vacationing are my BABI partners contact info. I left Hank a couple messages, and emails. Rick, I am sure was doing the same with Lou. I had forwarded all of Rick’s emails to Hank, so I had an idea that Hank knew what was going on.

One interesting note... I could not login to TQStats. I forgot my login & password. It is embedded into my office & home computer and never type them in.
Mark was also in Tahoe last week. We went to his place in Homewood on Thursday night, and were playing golf at Northstar on Friday morning. Homewood does not have cell reception. When I got back from the BBQ at Homewood I had two voicemails from Rick. These stated he was talking to the Bums about Patterson, but liked our deal better. Doug was going to Hawaii on Sunday and he wanted to know where we stood.

At about 12:30 in the morning, three sheets to the wind - ask Mark how much vino we drank that night, plus I came home and cracked another bottle of juice. I sent Hank an email asking what he wants to do. I also started looking at ESPN.com to check out the evening box scores. My wife was not too happy with the choices that I was making at this point, but Patterson’s line that night was a complete game, four hit win. Man, if that isn’t sex in BABI, I don’t know what is.

So I went to sleep with thoughts of Patterson dancing in my head. I heard the 5:30 AM alarm to play golf. My first thought? Coffee - stong, very strong. No Peet’s in Tahoe - bummer. I checked email to see if Hank gave the approval of the trade. No email, but I did see the Bums made the trade with the Pecklers. I knew that had weakened the Bums hand with the Lickers.

Mark came by at about 7:00 and picked me up. We teed off at 7:45. On the third tee my phone rings. I let it go to voice mail. I hit a perfect six-iron right down the middle of this short, narrow, dog-leg right par four. I listened to my voice mail and it’s Hank. I called him back with my nine year old daughter now driving the cart. Mark was in another cart with his buddy Joe. Hank & I started talking about the trade. He is giving up a lot of hitting, but understands we probably can’t do any better in the standings than 5th or 6th place. He signs off on the deal.

At this point Mark was on the green waiting wondering what the deal is.

I was now about 110 yards away. I hit a wedge into the bunker. I called Rick. He has the best voicemail system. Vivaldi, I think, maybe, Mozart. I told him we are in for the trade. His reply “excellent, done deal”. As I got to the green I told Mark that I had made a Blockbuster deal with the Lickers. All that I said for two minutes was “I made a blockbuster, I made a blockbuster...” Mark parred the hole and I got a bogey. I changed my mantra to “Blockbuster Bogey, Blockbuster Bogey.” We laughed for at least three holes.

And there is the answer to your question of how we made the deal with Rick & Lou.

Three words my friend.....Life is good!

Thank you, Noel, for the details. I had heard from Mark that Noel had disappeared on a hole only to show up eventually with the deal done. Great story. Hobo probably hasn’t given up anything net for this year, and they’ve now got a lot of stuff for next year. If any other team decides to throw in the towel (not naming names), they’ve got a lot of dry powder to make a deal now. If they don’t they’ve got to be the leader in the clubhouse for the 2006 BABI title.