Offseason
Honolulu was pretty quiet on the acquisition front. They essentially trade away aging 5-time all-star 3B (now LF'er) Wayne Langerhans to Austin for aging 10 time all-star RP Bralin Kohn. If it was real trade you'd rather have Kohn who is still an average ML reliever, where as Langerhand is a solid bench piece. Either way, neither player moves the needle.
Outlook/Forecast
Offseason
It was an off-season of apathy for Scottsdale. They added no players through free agency nor trade. This would be understandable and perhaps even expected for a team with the 2nd pick normally, but the Cardinals boast and over 80 million dollar payroll with only one real star. Scottsdale appears to be rotating around the the event horizon of the MWR exclusion with no visible effort to escape.
Outlook/Forecast
Offseason
In their second season under Canadadry the Altitude had a busy of season picking up solid, young 1B at Wiki Figueroa (23, .276/27/69 on a trash team) for middle-of-the-rotation pitching prospect Rondo Monroe (fair trade). They also acquired RF'er Timothy Blake, who has no bat to speak of, but should win the gold glove in right for a nice young 2B prospect in Christian Zhang and just-a-guy SP Luis Lorenzo. I'd probably rather Zhang, but Blake is more useful this season and it is not a franchise crusher. In free agency the most important thing the Altitude did was was retain Junior Burawa. While not all-star, he is above average in all aspects of the game and came at a very fair price considering he is still pretty young. They also signed terrific setup man Daki Chang at a price that would have been good value at twice the cost.
Outlook/Forecast
Offseason
It was a busy off season for the 9 consecutive season division champ. Gone is 2-time all-star and snack enthusiast Chip Puffer (for a less talented version of the same player Fergie Schmidt, young, cheap league average catcher Shawn Stein, and back-of-the-rotation arm Louis Andrews. The deal does save the Fog about 3 million too, but I'd rather be the Mounties. Their second deal (also with the Mounties-was this a 5 for 2 and I just missed it?) terrific first baseman Francisco Guerrero for competent, but below average CF Wil Newman and career minor leaguer Corban Simpson. This deal saved the Fog nearly 7 million which as to be the reason for the deal. Having saved 12 million is questionable trades, the Fog then went work in free agency. First they added 3rd starter Luther Padden at 5/64. I like the player, but not at that number. Enrique Bastardo came over at reasonable 1/1/6. However, gone is former Cy Young and borderline HoF'er Kirk Marks who was past his prime a year ago.
Outlook/Forecast
I started talking about the Fog's decline before it was cool and now they seem to have embraced it by doing the things that a team that is starting to build its scouting department back up do. The scouting department stinks for the first couple of seasons so there is no point in in even soft tanking so you start by signing bonus laden deals (Patten) and trading away guys who are good, but a little over salaried (Puffer) to bring down your commitments in future seasons while still staying competitive. Pfontaine is terrific and has won 3 WS's in recent memory so knows what he is doing. He knows that half of his division isn't even trying and the team that is (Arizona) has a while to go before they are even a .500 team. Therefore he has the running room to start rebuilding while still trying to squeeze a division or two. I thought they were an 86 win team that got unlucky and only won 83 last season. This season they are a legit 83 win team. They are declining, but I do not think the record will show it this season.
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