MORE TRADES COMPLETED

During BARB's pre-draft trading period, Ronald Melkonian engineered five trades, some of them on a major scale (acquiring Roy Halladay, Matt Garza, Cliff Lee and Ian Kinsler). Not surprisingly, trades were also completed between teams that don't trade away half of their squad during the season.

The first deal to come over the wires was a small trade between Matt Caskey's Worcester Eliminators and Alex Coffman's Baseball Club (AC/BC). The teams swapped top young players, with Ike Davis going to AC/BC and Jake McGee bolstering Worcester's relief corps (and, potentially in a few years, the rotation). In addition, the clubs traded 2nd-round picks. Worcester moves up to 19th overall (sixth in the round), while AC/BC is taking over the 12th selection in the round, which is 25th overall.

AC/BC wasn't finished. In another one-for-one, they added righty Ervin Santana and sent outfielder Austin Jackson to the New England Yankee Stompers.

"I made this trade to solidify my starting pitching," said Alex Coffman. "I had outfielders to trade, so it was a win-win for both of us."

New England's James Herndon also felt he was dealing from a position of strength.

"I made this trade to solidify my outfield, which has been horrendous on defense in the past," said Herndon.

Finally, the last new owner joined the fray. Ron Flautz of the Central California .45s, aiming to shore up his starting rotation (a common theme through the trading weekend), picked up RHP Jake Peavy and his $15 million salary from the Yuma Firebirds in exchange for catching prospect Travis D'Arnaud and their 2011 5th-round selection.

Peavy had been a part of the Yuma franchise his entire BARB career after being drafted in the "Weenie Draft" during the 2004 season. Since 2005, Peavy was 64-37 with a 3.99 ERA for the Firebirds.

"We cannot express how much we appreciate Jake's work both on and off the field. He represented the franchise well during his time here, and we hope he continues to have success elsewhere," said Yuma owner Chris Melkonian.

Firebirds GM Billy Beane took a more business-like approach in the press conference.

"The recent injuries to Peavy were why this deal was done. He has had trouble staying healthy. Some of money spent has been sunk cost. Eventually, you have to cut the ties. Travis is a very well rounded catcher with plenty of upside, and we believe he can develop into a quality catcher, not to mention, we believe strongly in our player development and scouting staff, so draft picks are gold to us."