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The Washington Sea Dogs have traded starters Jeff Conine, Sean Berry, Ron Karkovice, and Darren Bragg to the division rival Springfield Panthers for five prospects, despite being only 1.5 games behind the Phoenix Firebirds for first place in the Defiant Data Division.
This trade will likely end the Sea Dogs run at a division crown for this season, as the four players were among the strongest on the team; Conine was the team home run leader.
Washington Sea Dogs GM Aaron Weiner spoke about the trade at a press conference at 4:00 PM today.
"The prospects we received in the deal were Mike Lieberthal, J. T. Snow, Matt Stairs, Damon Easley, and Russ Davis," said Weiner.
At the conference, Weiner proceeded to talk about the individual players.
"Lieberthal is a young catcher, 22, with great power potential," said Weiner. "We believe that in the near future, he could hit around 15-20 homers.
"Snow was on a down year this year, but is clearly a player that is better than his numbers. He's also a fine defender.
"Easley has been a prospect for years, and we're pretty sure that his time has almost come. Playing in XRAY Stadium will help his power numbers as well.
"Russ Davis has fair power already, and we think he could be really good next season. He'll probably be our starting third baseman that year.
"Matt Stairs may have been the key to the entire deal. He has immense power potential, and though he's a little old to be a prospect, he's still very valuable. His best years are still ahead of him."
Manager Aaron Weiner was shocked at the development.
"Here we are, 1 1/2 games out of first place, and our GM goes and pulls something like this? That's completely ridiculous," said Weiner. "I know we'd lost four in a row, but hell, we were still an above-.500 team.
The GM, however, had other reasons.
"I've been watching this team," said Weiner, "and we're a below-.500 team since Cal Ripken went down. We're in the closest division in baseball, just 3 games out of last while being 1 1/2 games out of first."
The manager, however, did understand the value of these prospects.
"Many of them will join the team immediately," said Weiner, "so we can hasten their development. This is a much better team than it looks. But man, we're really going to miss those guys, especially Ronny Karkovice. That arm behind the plate was a real weapon."
This deal followed another deal that Weiner made with Larimer earlier in the week that had sent leadoff hitter Jose Offerman and a prospect to Larimer for third baseman Bill Mueller and shortstop Pokey Reese.
With the trade of Karkovice, there are now only three players on the Sea Dogs major league roster older than 30; ace Chuck Finley, reliever Joe Richardson and first baseman Vada Speer, just called up.
The GM said, however, very plainly that this deal wasn't all it seemed, but wouldn't elaborate further.
Along with the four Sea Dogs's starters went journeyman lefty specialist Buddy Groom.
Notes and Quotes:
GM Weiner also said that this wasn't the only trade that was in the works. "We're not going to trade Chuck Finley or Todd Stottlemyre," said Weiner, "and it would take a substantial offer to get Ogea or Adams. But we have something on the table right now for another young player that might include one of the starters."
Weiner was also very happy that none of the pitchers were involved in the deal.
"The nicest thing about this deal is that we didn't have to give up our pitching to get these players; that would have gone against what we wanted to do."
The Sea Dogs are currently interested in a few players. Primary on their list is Paul O'Neill of the Manhattan Shedders. Also interesting is Edgardo Alfonso of the Macon Whoopie.
Written by Aaron Weiner