How'd He Do That?

I was reviewing the 2009 BABI auction, and was struck by the following question:

How the hell did the Pounders finish 2nd?

I really have no idea. Coolio kept only 7 players from 2008 season, with a Rotolab/Baseball HQ projected profit of +18. This was tied for the lowest profit of any team in the league. (We won't mention which team the Pounders tied.)

One of the seven was a true, premier keeper: Chris Carpenter at $4. Carpenter just missed winning the Cy Young, with 17 wins, an ERA of 2.24 and a WHIP of 1.007. He had to be #1 in profits among any player in BABI in 2009. The Pounders resisted the many entreaties to trade Carp.

Joe Cool had two other members of his precious Cardinal team - Big Al Pujols at $45 and Little Yadier Molina at $5. Both performed very well, and both threw in a bonus - Big Al stole 16 bags and Bengie's kid brother stole 9. There were definitely profits earned by both.

Brandon Phillips is on a 2011 contract at $16. His numbers were down from his 30-30 season in 2007, but he still hit a respectable 20-98-25-.276. Phillips was traded to Mr. Leaguer for an unkeepable Jimmy Rollins and Roy Oswalt. Oswalt only won 3 games for the Pounders, and had an ERA of 4.63, suggesting his 2nd half wasn't as good as I had thought. Rollins replaced Phillips' production.

The other guys kept were Jeff Baker (the utility guy) at a buck, Edinson Volquez at $5 and Kyle Lohse at $3. They didn't stink, but they were disappointing. Well, maybe Lohse bordered on stinky with that 4.74 ERA. Oh, and Volquez only pitched 1 inning after May 16, so that's pretty bad too. At least Baker earned his dollar.

Here are the guys the Pounders bought in the auction:

Emanuel Burriss, $15. Wow, he was bad. From starter to minor leaguer to injured minor leaguer. On the other hand, though, here is a stat that may surprise you: Burriss stole 11 bags before being sent down. His other stats were horrid, but he did one thing well.

Brad Hawpe, $28. Hawpe didn't stink, but he was immediately traded to the Bums for Jake Peavy. Now Peavy didn't stink, but he was hurt for so, so long. He only had 7 wins for the Pounders in 81 innings. His ERA and WHIP were good, but the innings were so low that it didn't help all that much.

Raul Ibanez, $28. Ibanez had a career year with the Phillies, 34-93-4-.272. He was traded in the last trade of the BABI season to Any 9 for Francisco Rodriguez and Chase Utley. Rodriguez had a 6.55 ERA and Utley hit .225 for the Pounders. Not a bad trade by Any 9, even if they toss Ibanez back in 2010.

Cody Ross, $16. Ross was one of the hot concepts, and he finished the season 24-90-5-.270. Ross was a 2nd half hitter last year - he was only batting .213 on May 16 with 5 homers. See his trade below along with Soriano.

Yunel Escobar, $14. I have to say, I never would have bid anything like this on Escobar, who is turning into a nice middle infield piece who does a little of everything. See Prado below.

Jerry Hairston, $11. He hit .326 in 2008, but followed it with only .251 in 2009. He did hit 10 homers and steal 7 bags, but this wasn't exactly a good use of $11.

There were a couple of nice, inexpensive picks:

Martin Prado, $3, who finished the year with 450 at bats, qualified at 3 infield positions and hit over .300. He was packaged with Escobar and sent to the Pecklers for Cliff Lee, Aramis Ramirez and the surprisingly useful Angel Pagan (who hit over .300, had 6 homers and stole 14 bags last year).

Willie Harris, $5. Harris didn't really have a very good season, certainly not good enough for anyone to want to trade for him. But in the end he provided good value to the Pounders, hitting 7 homers and stealing 11 bases. You can do a lot worse for $5.

The other hitting purchases did little: Mike Rivera hit .228 and Jack Wilson hit .255, and now both are in the AL.

On the pitching side, I wouldn't call these purchases brilliant:

Matt Capps, $26. He got 27 saves, but it was ugly. ERA - 5.80, WHIP - 1.656. Yikes! Of course, we should remember that Capps was his BEST closer for 2009 because the Pickled Pecklers suckered him in to buying:

Jason Motte, $21. Motte got ZERO saves. On the other hand, his ERA and WHIP were better than Capps - slightly.

Rafael Soriano, $10. This turned out pretty good, as Soriano held the Braves' closer job long enough to get 27 saves with good numbers. Co Co Cool traded him off to the Old Rips along with Ross to get Lance Berkman (sounds good, but Berkman only hit 7 homers for the Pounders) and Jose Valverde for replacement saves.

His other two purchased starting pitchers were Sean Marshall, $9, who started 9 games and won 3, and Oliver Perez, $2, whose numbers make Capps look like the Cy Young winner. His other bullpen spots went to Cla Meredith, $6, who was mediocre, and Dennys Reyes, who wasn't lousy, but did nothing, no wins and 1 save, though for a buck, that's actually a good result.

The Pounders hoarded their FAAB pennies and bought Matt Holliday (another Cardinal) for $95, who had a great stretch drive. And they picked up Barry Zito on waivers after being dropped by the Cartel. Zito's numbers for the Pounders: 10 wins, 3.87 ERA, 1.350 WHIP. No other free agents helped all that much.

How did this team come in 2nd? Did we all stink even worse? Well, the Pecklers certainly did, but we didn't think so on draft day. Somehow the Pounders became the team to dump to. People didn't want to trade with the 1st place runaway Cartel, and the Lickers ran out of trading chips pretty early. Any 9 decided early they couldn't win and shut down, and everyone else was playing for 2010. So the Pounders were able to get value in trades somehow by default, and had just enough pieces to keep people interested.

It doesn't leave much for this year, though they didn't have much to start last year - in fact, they have pretty much the same stuff - those 3 Cardinals. But careful - don't underestimate the Coolest guy in the league.