Jessica Fletcher - contributing reporter
This series seems to be a little few and far between due to the time it takes to put it together but always fun to take a look at how a team was built. With the recent acquisitions this season, let's take a look at one of the NL contenders coming out of the NL North, the Hartford Rising Stars...who at some point will likely become aging stars, but not this season. After beating Pittsburgh in the NL Wild Card round, they lost the NLDS to Buffalo who would eventually go on to win the S53 NL Pennant; so they were close but not quite at the top of their game. It is year 6 of jverrier85's ownership with the team. And the franchise fans are thankful for that as prior to him taking over the team had only finished above 3rd place in the division just once in the 14 years prior and 4 other owners - with the one he bought the franchise from being a one and done.
The team currently leads the league in HR, BB, AVG, and OPS; and own an 85 run differential over the first 62 games of the season.
- Finances - They come in as the 9th highest payroll in the league this year, but thankfully they've received quite a bit of money in trades from Columbus and Tokyo. They are also have a slightly above average coaching payroll.
- The Good (starters as of writing)
- Bernie Molina (2B) - Trade S49 - Sent veterans Doug Cornelius, Brooks Bonilla, +$1M to the Columbus Corgis for rookie Bernie Molina and RF prospect Neo Lecuona. Well worth it for Columbus has this was the start of 4 straight division titles and a huge part of the rebuild for Hartford.
- Tom Hines (LF) - Trade S50 - Sent prospects Charley Roberts, Jody Guthrie, and Rolando DeRojas to the Anaheim Diablos for Bonk Burnett and prospect Tom Hines. Probably not quite the return Anaheim had hoped for, this deal looks great for Hartford.
- Omar Gonzales (1B) - Trade S54 - Tokyo put Gonzales on the market early in the pre-season and many offers were sent from all the playoff contenders around the league but he held firm to his high demands. In the end, out of nowhere Tokyo ends up selling Omar plus $3M to Hartford for a lesser version of himself in Spud Campbell. Solid deal for Hartford again, not quite sure about Tokyo's side of the deal.
- Bonk Burnett (CF) - Trade S50 - Acquired with Tom Hines, see above.
- Jermile Frandsen (RF) vL - Rule 4 S50 - Picked up with the #72 pick overall in the second round. Fantastic platoon pick, 41 contact, 100 power, 91 vL, and 87 eye.
- Noe Lecuona (RF) vR - Trade S49 - Acquired with Bernie Molina, see above.
- Shane Malone (C) vL - Rule 4 S45 - Supplemental pick in Round 1 at pick #53 after losing Kenny Mann, a player they had picked up earlier that season in hopes for another playoff run (from the New Orleans franchise).
- Marvin Johnson (C) vR - Trade S49 - Prospect flip with Buffalo for closer prospect Jayson Roof, who won S52 NL Fireman of the Year.
- Leonel Martinez (3B) - IFA S51 $24.9M - In the middle of a great sophomore season.
- Bruce Sager (SS) - FA S54 3/$19.5M - Rumor has it, it wasn't until after reading some of the advanced sabermetrics articles of the blog that the Hartford owner moved on from strike out king, Garabez Belliard - who owns the top 3 most Ks in a season and decided to grab someone with a MUCH better eye.
- The Bad (bench)
- Warren Cobb (2B) - Rule 4 S51 with the 4th overall pick
- Jose Ontiveros (CF) - Rule 4 S49 with the 39th overall pick after losing Cutter Brantley to Santa Fe that previous off-season.
- Albert Barcelo (SS) - IFA S51 S1.8M
- The Ugly (injuries)
- Trey Scharein (SP) - Rule 4 DITR S39 with the #426 overall pick in the 13th round.
- The Mound
- Nigel White (SP1) - FA S53 - max deal - 5/$110M
- Avisail Mujica (SP2) - Trade S49 - Sending prospects Rocky Steenstra (who they had acquired from DC just a year prior) and Harold Eiland (who like Steenstra had been acquired from Montreal the year prior). Solid quick turn around for Hartford on this one.
- Max Abreu (SP3) - FA S54 - 2/$14M
- Joe Madson (SP4) - Trade S48 - With the Atlanta Expos, sending Gabby Lunsford and Bruce Latham. As expected both players were flipped by the Expos in other trades.
- Victor Ortega (SP5) - Trade S54 - Sending prospect Omar Villano to the New Orleans franchise, who later flipped him to the Expos for their own SP upgrade.
- Brooks Bonilla (SuA) - Trade S54 - After trading him in S49, he was reacquired in the Corgis fire sell this season, send Alberto Lopez and Boots Blake for the setup man. This literally came down to whoever sent the Corgis the first offer for them to clear future salary.
- Marcos Owen (SuA) - Trade S54 - Made the same time as the Bonilla deal, and like the that one it was likely first come first serve for the Corgis bullpen. This one had Felipe Teheran and prospect Kendrys Espinoza heading back to Columbus. $5M was also sent to Hartford to cover Owen's contract for this season.
- Gabriel Quixote (LRA) - Trade S53 - Another deal with the other top team in the NL, the New Orleans Old Fashioneds; this one saw Hartford sending 2B Domonic Malone (would later become a FA) for Quixote and Rafael Ciriaco.
- Gabe Brown (LRB) - Rule 4 S49 #56 pick after losing __ to the __ in FA.
- Ichiro Suzuki (SuB) - Rule 4 S48 #49 pick after losing Vladimir Gonzalez to the Washington DC in FA.
- Pat Johjima (SuB) - IFA S42 $7.2M
- Rafael Ciriaco (SuB) - Trade53 - Acquired with Gabriel Quixote, see above.
Running total - for this purpose we will note how the player was first acquired by the team. List does not list current prospects, only the ML roster.
- 3 players acquired via Free Agency
- 7 players acquired via Rule 4 Draft
- 0 players acquired via Rule 5 Draft
- 3 players acquired via International Free Agency
- 13 players acquired via Trade.
- 0 players claimed of Waivers
Good luck Hartford!