Medlen has been a sensation for the Firebirds
Eat your heart out, Max Scherzer. Just short of halfway through his
team’s schedule, Yuma righty Kris Medlen is on fire with a season that could go
down in BARB annals as the greatest campaign by a pitcher.
14-0. 1.24 ERA. 104 strikeouts, 18 walks
and 71 hits in 116 1/3 innings. All from a pitcher without a sniff of a BARB
roster before 2013.
But that all changed when Yuma traded up
and selected Kris Medlen first overall in the 2013 draft. Medlen still flew somewhat
under the radar after the draft, however, as Chris Melkonian also added flame-throwing
ace Justin Verlander to his stable of horses.
Medlen was the #3 starter as the season began, behind Verlander and
lefty David Price. His first start was good, but decidedly not great: 7 IP, 3
ER against the St. Francis Friars. He allowed just one run in start number two
but left after six with the game tied. Sean Doolittle proceeded to give up a
run in the bottom of the eighth as New York handed Yuma the only loss they’ve
experienced so far when Medlen has taken the hill.
From there, though, Medlen has taken off:
-4/16 vs. New England (2012 BARB World Series participant): Complete
game, 1 run, 6 K in 6-1 win
-4/21 vs. Los Angeles: 4-hit shutout, 7 K in 6-0 win
-4/26 vs. Soho: 7 shutout innings, 6-0 win
-5/1 vs. Riverside: 8 innings, 2 runs, 9 K in 5-2 win
-5/7 vs. Brownsville: 3-hit shutout, 2 BB, 9 K in 4-0 victory
-5/12 vs. Casselton: 8 innings, 2 runs
-5/18 vs. Frostbite Falls: NO-HITTER, 7 K with the only runner reaching
on an error
-5/24 vs. Worcester: 8 innings, 4 hits, 2 runs, 7 K
Medlen appeared possibly human on May 29 against Frostbite, as he
allowed four runs over six innings. His offense, however, had staked him to a
6-0 lead through two frames, and the relievers only let in one Flying Squirrel
in the final three for a 6-5 victory and Medlen’s 10th win. He would
go on to strike out 10 of the defending champion Pottsylvania Creepers in 7 2/3
innings of one-run ball, outduel Madison Bumgarner (8 IP, 2 R, 1 ER) with six
shutout innings on just three hits, and finaly he shut out New York on six hits
with nine strikeouts.
With more than half of the season to play, it’s likely Medlen will take
a loss at some point. Barring injury, he’ll have 17-18 more starts. Imagine the
possibilities, though: if he continues at his current pace, he’ll win 29-30
games (the league record is just over 20), strike out over 200 and walk just
about 40 with the lowest qualifying ERA in BARB history. And with the Firebird
offense and bullpen to back him up, those numbers become more than plausible.
MULTIPLE
TRADES EXECUTED
For a while after the season began, the trade market was cold. Outside of
New York acquiring both Upton brothers and a handful of small deals, the
commissioner’s office wasn’t pressed with many trades to review.
Phones all around the league started ringing more as mid-season
approached, though. Soho, sensing its playoff hopes starting to fade in the
midst of a long losing streak, pulled the trigger for bullpen help in acquiring
Joe Nathan from Los Angeles for Mike Zunino and Victor Roache.
A few weeks later, Brooklyn agreed to send staff ace Max Scherzer to
sibling rival Worcester for righty Trevor Cahill, SS prospect Addison Russell
and a PTBN. With the deal, the Eliminators bolstered their rotation to attempt
to keep a multiple-game lead and, it appeared, load up for a potentially titanic
championship clash with Yuma. The Moabs, meanwhile, continue to stockpile more
and more young talent.
Veteran right-handers were the story of the next deal. Los Angeles
signed John Lackey and immediately dealt him and Andrew Bailey to New England
for Kyle Lohse. New England, despite prior proclamations to the tune of
re-building, seemed to want help for a possible wild card push (the Yankee
Stompers were 8 ½ games back as of the trade). Other than that, no rationale
was given from either side.
Frostbite Falls jumped into the mix as well, acquiring right-handed
pitcher Matt Garza (a former Flying Squirrel) from the Isotopes. The discussions
actually began with Los Angles asking about prospects in the Frostbite system,
and after Flying Squirrel management looked over the roster, they noticed a
pitcher who could be of use. So Frostbite Falls agreed to send OF Jackie
Bradley, Jr., along with four lefties (Brett Anderson, Eric O’Flaherty, Max
Fried and Manny Banuelos) to SoCal. In addition to Garza, the Flying Squirrels
will receive two PTBNs after the season and, if they don’t make the playoffs, another
PTBN.
“We felt like our rotation could use some help, and Garza is just the
kind of pitcher we wanted,” Frostbite GM Andrew Friedman said. “Yes, the price
was high in left-handed pitchers, but they are either injured, injury-prone or
a couple of years off. And the prospects we get back soften the blow.
Obviously, this deal is to help us make the playoffs—if not as the division
winner, then as the wild card. And if, for some reason, we crash and burn and
miss the postseason, we’ll add one more to our stable of prospects. With all
due respect to that player, though, I’d prefer a ring.”
Finally, after much contemplation, St. Francis made clear their
intentions of competing for the crown in the Central. First, he swung a
five-for-one deal to acquire power-hitting sensation Chris Davis. From the
Friars’ media relations department:
Burdened with
payroll, underperforming on offense and
in danger of falling out of the Central Division race, the St. Francis Friars
today boldly (some say desperately) “rolled the dice” with their biggest asset
(a deep farm system) and packed four prospects and a player-to-be-named to
acquire Brownsville Cutters 1B/DH Chris Davis.
Davis (.276, 18 HR,
49 RBI) joins Jose Bautista, Pedro Alvarez, Carlos Beltran and Carlos Quentin
to form a powerful middle of the order. But the cost was high: a slugging SS
prospect in Javier Baez, two promising pitchers at AAA (Danny Hultzen and Casey
Kelly) and former first-rounder Bubba Starling are the property of the Cutters.
A player to be named from St. Francis’ farm system will be added to the mix
following the conclusion of the 2013 postseason.
“This trade is
pretty simple,” owner Hatfield said. “If we catch Casselton and win the
division outright, it will be considered a success. If we miss the playoffs,
even in we end up with an improved record, it will probably be seen as the
straw that broke the camel’s back, and trigger an organizational shakeup. None
of this might’ve been necessary if management had not stupidly spent much of
their cap on now-sidelined 1B Mark Teixeira. I signed off on that decision, so
what can you do? You can’t fire the owner.”
For their part, the brothers Brown had accomplished what they set out
to do: sell high for much talent. The cutters aren’t going anywhere in 2013,
but the pieces here and from the draft portend well for their future.
Defending champion Pottsylvania was the other team to meet St. Francis’
needs. The Creepers, mired in fourth place in the West just months after their
ring ceremony, dealt from a position of strength (relief pitching)to send Koji
Uehara to the Friars for young lefty Wade Miley and improve their rotation now
and down the road.
In another piece from the St. Francis front office:
The 38-year-old
Japanese league veteran will join the Friars’ ever-shifting bullpen, and his
acquisition demonstrated once again the tremendous starting pitching depth
accumulated by St. Francis this year. The Friars had previously released Jorge
de la Rosa and Dallas Braden, moved the salaries of veterans Edinson
Volquez, Clayton Richard and Aaron
Harang, and in a recent trade packaged three young pitchers in a deal with
Brownsville. This deal, which sends a promising 26-year-old Miley (out of the
division), is only possible because of the development of young (and
inexpensive) hurlers like Matt Harvey, Shelby Miller, Travis Wood and Derek
Holland—who, along
with veteran Bronson Arroyo, now constitute the Friars rotation.
Will the trades work out in the way the GMs hoped? We’ll have to see over
the second half of the season.
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