OOPS, HE DID IT AGAIN

Courtesy of James Herndon

Like a broken record, Ronald Melkonian acquires a player, proclaims him the best at his position and the player who will finally lead his nomadic team to a title, then promptly trades him away. Read on to see who it was this time…

Just days ago, Melkonian completed a trade with Carolina that included promising youngsters Giancarlo Stanton, Nolan Arenado and Danny Salazar donning D-Backs uniforms. In his press release, Melkonian said Stanton and Arenado were “cornerstones in rebuilding a franchise” and Salazar was the beginning of his future rotation.

Now, all are gone. That’s right, Stanton to New England and Arenado and Salazar to Brooklyn.

Arizona’s return? Xander Bogaerts and Nick Castellanos.

“While we were extremely high on Stanton,” said Melkonian, “we felt that shortstop is perhaps a more important position to fill than outfield and finding someone like Bogaerts is a rarity.

“With Castellanos and Bogaerts, we perhaps have the most talented third base/shortstop combo in BARB.”

His trading partners were in favor of their respective sides of the swaps.

“I sort of hate myself for doing it, but hell it’s a good deal for me,” Eric Caskey said.

James Herndon made another surprising trade of a Fenway-flavored infielder, Will Middlebrooks. In exchange, Nor Cal sent Ian Desmond and a player to be named. Herndon took to the podium to speak about both deals:

“We made two trades that greatly increase our chances of winning this year. In our trade with (Arizona), we had no intention of sending away our prized prospect and future shortstop Bogaerts, but he made an offer we couldn’t refuse. He gave us a proven top-10 player for a youngster. How could we not make that deal?

“Stanton and Miggy are the new Manny and Papi, that power in the lineup will hopefully carry us toward a playoff berth this year.

“Finally, in our trade with Anthony Guerra we secured a proven shortstop to plug a hole in our lineup. Top to bottom, this is looking like a championship-caliber team.”

While Guerra’s thoughts weren’t made public, some inferred he was mainly trying to free up salary cap space to sign a big-name free agent. Sure enough, just moments after the trade, it was announced Ryan Howard had agreed to a deal with Nor Cal for the rest of the season.

FREE AGENT MOVES:

-Brownsville signs LHP Jeremy Affeldt

-Yuma signs 3B Danny Valencia and OF Ryan Raburn

-Arizona signs RHPs Brandon League and Kris Medlen

-Nor Cal signs 1B Ryan Howard