Dave Dodd; Man or Machine?

It has been evident for years that Dave Dodd had the talent to be a special player.  The way he went from  an everyday outfielder in A ball in 2015 to manning RF for Jersey the very next season as a 22 year old was no mistake.  The power potential was always there.  In 2015 he hit 15 HR in just 41 games in AAA before being called up to the show.  In 4 full big league seasons he has never failed to top 30 2B, 30 HR or 100 RBI.  He has speed, he plays defense and the scary part.....he is improving.

Turning 27 early this season all you have to do is look at his numbers to see the improvement.  He has improved on his batting average every year he has been in the league.  Hitting .254 as a rookie in 2016, .289 in 2019 and now this year 75 games into the season an eye-popping .399.  As a rookie Dodd broke the all-time record, and still holds it, for strikeouts in a season at 204.  Last season he struck out 138 times and in 2021 he is on pace to K just 83 times.  

At age 27, Dodd very well could be in the perfect storm.  He hits directly behind one of the greatest hitters in the BSA in Mike Bryant and has power hitting all-star Jaime Torres directly behind him.  He is in his prime.  The 26-28 ages are well known for sluggers putting up the biggest numbers of their career.  From Luis Padilla's record season at age 26,  Jeff Cole's 12 WAR at age 27, Zach Hutchinson's 12.1 WAR season at age 27, and Bryant's Triple Crown season at age 28 now is Dodd's time.

So far in 2021 he is putting up video game numbers. When you look at the leaderboard it is a collage of Dodd's face over and over again sprinkled in with a couple other faces.  His. 399 batting average is 26 points higher than Bill Wilson of Boston.  His .471 OBP is 28 points higher than Al Mills of Greenville.  This might be the most unbelievable one: his .853 slugging is 186 points higher than Matt Doyle of Toronto.  The record for slugging in a season is .699 by Felix Morales.  He has 10 more HR than Doyle as this point as well.  If Dodd stays on his current pace he would shatter BSA records.  A WAR of 15.8, 71 HR, 243 hits, 187 RBI.  A triple slash of .399/.471/.853 to go along with an OPS of 1.324.

No one can say what is going on with Dodd right now.  He already has a Player of the Month trophy to go along with 5 player of the week trophies in 2021 alone.  All we can say to the fans of Jersey Shore and the BSA, sit back and enjoy it.  You might be witnessing a season for the ages and seasons like this only come around once in a great while.  Enjoy it will it lasts, I know I will!

GO D-BAGS!

Revisiting Old Trades; Part 1

With the commish dealing with personal issues and a lull in the league I thought I would create a new series revisiting some of the bigger trades we have seen in the league's past.  After looking over some of the proposed trades to look at I have decided I want to focus on trades that happened AT LEAST 2 plus years ago.  A lot of the big trades included prospects at the time and some might still be hard to analyze if they are still raw and haven't matured yet.  Today we visit 2 trades.  The first being between the Hendersonville Hitmen and the Quebec Les Capitales (Cleveland) and the Sacramento Mentalists (Los Cabos) and the Springdale Dynamos (Greenville).

Before I start I want to say I am using MY TEAM SCOUT for all historical scouting reports.

Trade 1:

3/2/2012 (5 years, 6 months ago): Hendersonville receives RF Luis Padilla, SP Mal Windham and $5M in cash from Quebec (Now Cleveland) in exchange for SP Carlos Arevalo, MR Tomomi Sanu, SP Jack Wolochow, and CF Jesus Carrillo.

Everyone knows 2012 was a different time and era for the BSA.  Quebec finished with one of the worst records in the league in 2011, losing 106 games.  Hendersonville won 109 games in 2011 after being ousted by surprise Long Beach who went on to win the championship.  

To Hendersonville:

RF Luis Padilla - 21 years old. 2.5/4.5*  400K

SP Mal Windham - 24 years old. 3.5/4* 400K

$5,000,000 in cash

To Quebec:

SP Carlos Arevalo - 26 years old. 4/4* 1 year, $7.25M

MR Tomomo Sanu - 25 years old. 4/4* 1 year, $5.275M

SP Jack Wolochow - 27 years old. 1/1* Unknown

RF Jesus Carrillo - 29 years old. 1.5/1.5* 1 year, $1.7M

On the surface it looks like kind of a head scratcher for Quebec.  They were by far the worse team, traded the 2 younger players both under team control AND gave $5 million dollars and took on 3 players who had just hit arbitration for the first time.  While Padilla wasn't what he was today, nor did scouts have him as a monster prospect he still had the most talent in the deal.  But like I said on the surface isn't always what "wins" the trade or gets the better end.  Arevalo was coming off a very nice season for the Hitmen while Windham got quite shelled in his rookie season, even though it seems he was called up a little early having never played past AA ball before. Sanu was also one of the better relievers in 2011.

2011 stats:

Padilla:  .337/.486/.590   83 AB, 5 HR, 17 RBI. (Rookie season)

Windham:  4-23, 6.62 ERA, 1.71 WHIP, 5.81 FIP, 115K, 105BB in 178 IP.

Arevalo:  14-10, 3.62 ERA, 1.26 WHIP, 4.37 FIP, 184K, 70BB in 203.1 IP.

Sanu: 8-2, 1 save. 2.23 ERA, 1.07 WHIP, 3.61 FIP, 81K, 27BB in 72.2 IP.

Wolochow: 2-3, 5.45 ERA, 1.56 ERA, 5.63 FIP, 58K, 34BB in 74.1 IP. (with OKL & SF)

Carrillo:  .231/.315/.387.  186AB, 13 2B, 4 HR, 28 RBI, 24 SB.

On the surface HEN gets the young talented rookie slugger and a talented pitcher (ratings wise) while Quebec gets a quality starting pitcher, quality reliever, a 4th OF type and throw in Wolochow.  The main part of the trade is my mind is the Hitmen lost almost 19M off their bottom line before the 2012 season where they would have a payroll of 123M, one of the largest we have ever seen in the league and lose $36M for the season.  The money cut was well needed.

Let's see how they fared after the trade:

Padilla: 6 years, 139 HR, 516 RBI, .308/.408/.493 (Still on HEN)

Windham:  1 year, 10-9, 5.17 ERA, 1.46 WHIP,  5.33 FIP (Traded to GRN)

Arevalo: 1 year, 4-11, 6.50 ERA, 1.64 ERA, 5.10 FIP, 98K, 54BB, in 106.2 IP (Traded back to HEN)

Sanu: 6 years, 22-10, 17 saves, 475 K, 407.5 IP, 3.27 ERA

Wolochow: 1 year, 1-2, 5.91 ERA, 1.64 ERA, 4.79 FIP, 19K, 13BB

Carrillo:  2 years, .180/.278/.281, 18 2B, 6 HR, 46 RBI, 20 SB (Released)

In the end, Padilla has been far and away the best player becoming one of the best all around bats in the league.  At the time no one could have seen it coming. The only player of value ended up being Sanu for Cleveland who has been an above average reliever for the Monsters for 6 seasons now.  SP Arevalo was traded back to Hendersonville 4 months later, where again Quebec gave up money...and a lot of it, $10 million in cash along with shut down bullpen arm Oliver Donahue in exchange for CF Ingo Backx and 2B Bryce Hester.

At the end of the season the trade ended up looking like this:

RF Luis Padilla

MR Oliver Donahue

SP Mal Windham

$15M in cash

MR Sanu

SP Wolochow

RF Carrillo

CF Backx

2B Hester

While Hester and Backx ended up being BSA players, one word for this debacle for Quebec was ouch.

Trade 2:

1/13/2012 (5 years, 8 months ago) Springdale (Now Greenville) receives LF Stan Hickman, SP Ron Eager, CF Augusto Grinaldo, SP Ramon Cruz, MR Jesus Salazar, C Carlos Martinez from Sacremento (Now Los Cabos) in exchange for RF Arturo Morin and MR Javier Martinez.

In 2011 both teams struggled finishing 3rd and 4th in their respective divisions.  Stan Hickman had been picked with the 9th overall pick in the 2011 amateur draft and SP Eager was coming off a shaky sophomore year.  At 31 years old Morin had a monster year in 2011 (and the last time he would get over over 350 AB) and had just signed a 3 year deal making an average of $12M per season.  It was the simple case of trading good young players for at the time a superstar caliber player.

To Springdale:

LF Stan Hickman, 22 years old, 1/4*, MLC

SP Ron Eager, 22 years old, 4/4*,  1 year $8.5M

CF Augusto Grinaldo, 21 years old, 1.5/1.5*, MLC

SP Ramon Cruz, 27 years old, 1/1*, MLC

MR Jesus Salazar, 24 years old, 1.5/2.5*, MLC

C Carlos Martinez, 23 years old, 1/2.5*, MLC

To Sacramento:

RF Arturo Morin, 31 years old, 4.5/4.5*, 3 years, $12M per year.

MR Javier Martinez, 28 years old, 4.5/4.5*, 1 year, $5.32M

On the surface here Sacramento gets the superstar and a very good middle reliever coming off 2 very good seasons in a row, but pays the price taking on almost $10M dollars and giving up the two very valuable pieces in Hickman and Eager.  Interesting at the time and 6 years later, still interesting to see how things turned out.

2011 stats:

Eager: 5-14, 5.15 ERA, 1.58 WHIP, 4.65 FIP, 131K, 63BB, 173IP

Hickman, Grinaldo, Cruz, Salazar and Martinez had yet to see the Major League Club

Morin: .303/.412/.502, 30 2B, 28 HR, 123 RBI, 140 OPS+

Martinez: 5-3, 5 saves, 3.12 ERA, 1.01 WHIP, 3.84 WHIP, 97K, 23BB, 89.1 IP

What's not to like about those numbers?  A middle of the order hitter and a middle relief/set up man both at ages where they should be in their prime.  Eager, 22 at the time, was probably pre maturing brought up to the majors and was taking his lumps and the rest were just young minor league players at that point.

Let's see how they fared after the trade:

Hickman: (5 years): .281/.378/.472, 80 HR, 298 RBI.  (Still on team)

Eager: (4.5 years): 51-33, 4.08 ERA, 1.39 WHIP, 518K , 248 BB, 696.9 IP (Traded to LA)

Grinaldo: (1.5 years): .260/.344/.379, 436 AB, 19 2B, 11 HR, 58 RBI ( Traded to STL)

Cruz: (1 year): 1-1, 7.04 ERA, 2.05 WHIP, 5.52 FIP, 30.2 IP (Released)

Salazar: (1 year): 1-2, 7.79 ERA, 1.85 WHIP, 6.72 FIP, 17.1 IP (Claimed on Waivers by ORL)

Martinez: Never played (Traded to MAU)

Morin: (4 years): .271/.359/.435, 38 HR, 192 RBI, 1135 AB (Retired)

Martinez: (2 years): 9-7, 29 saves, 3.55 ERA, 1.22 WHIP, 160K, 46BB, 135.2IP (Traded to BAF)

What a direction this trade took!  In the following 20 months after the trade, Morin missed 7+ with multiple injuries which ended up derailing his career.  He never came close to matching the numbers he put up with Springdale and last played in 2015 hitting an abysmal .186 before retiring.  Martinez was a quality closer for a year then was moved to middle relief before being sent to Baffin in a 9 player deal.  He played 1 season there before retiring at the age of 33.

Looking at it from the view point of Sacramento, things could have been a lot worse.  Hickman, while very talented, has also been ravaged with injuries, only seeing 400AB twice in his 5 year career, but still putting up solid numbers the last 3 years, is only 28 years old, and on a very team friendly contract.  Eager had a solid run with Greenville before being traded to LA which netted them stud MR Hassan and current 23 year old catcher and ROY candidate Chris Moore which looks to be the real deal.  Grinaldo and Martinez were both pieces in bigger deals that brought the 84's CF Perez and SP Manning.  Cruz and Salazar were both basically fillers that never amounted to anything for Greenville.

This turned out to be quite the bust for Sacramento. Making the playoffs in 3 of Morin's 4 years with the team, if he could have stayed healthy who knows if LCC could have advanced further in the playoffs.  Not only did it hurt by him not playing up to expectations, it seems to be the trade that keeps on giving for Greenville.  Both players they traded are long retired and to show for it they have Stan Hickman in his prime,  23 year old stud Catcher Moore, 28 year old stud MR Hassan on their roster now and pieces that helped them getting Manning and Perez.  

This is an example of the repercussions a trade can have when a group of young players are traded for a veteran trying to put a team over the top.  If one of the players going to Springdale would have flopped and declined there were 5 more who could have made an impact.  Morin's injuries and decline killed the deal for Sacramento and leaves LCC sitting here 5+ years later wondering what might have been.

GO D-BAGS