New York Cobra Active in the Trading Market

A couple trades of note occurred over the New Year's Holiday, both centering around individual and team defense.  After a disappointing post-season, you knew that the New York Cobra (despite 116 wins) could not stand pat.  The Cobra traded highly regarded 3B Kal Chillingworth and C Gonk Droid to the Portland Decepticons in exchange for SS Luciano Cedeno and C Alan Jarrett.  The key to the trade was the glove of Luciano Cedeno, one of the games finest defensive shortstops according to any metric (especially Total Zone).  Cedeno will take over at SS for the Cobra, and Brett Solo will slide over to 3B.

In the past few years, Solo had lost a step at shortstop.  Although he is still above average due to his exceptional throwing arm, Owner/Team President/GM Brad of this Nation took notice.  After a heart-to-heart discussion with manager Juan Alou, Juan informed Brad that they need to figure out ways to win more post-season games, even at the expense of regular season games.  This move may accomplish this objective since Cedeno creates a full 1.5 runs less than Kal Chillingworth.  They are both hopeful that Cedeno's glove will be the difference in close post-season baseball games.  This is a change from previous regimes in New York, where Brad would not listen to the input from Team Manager (and Hall of Famer) Eddie.  Both Manager and owner are on the same page with this one, and the move is expected to enhance team chemistry rather than detract from it.

In 2012, Brett Solo played 129 games, had 638 total chances, a 4.95 range factor, 24 errors, 89 DP's, and a .962 fielding percentage.  In similar playing time, Cedeno had 126 games, 611 total chances, a 4.85 range factor, 5 errors, 99 DP's, and a .992 fielding percentage.  Solo had the 5th most errors at SS, and the only players with more errors had significantly more chances.  Cedeno easily led the league in fielding percentage, with half the errors of the next best SS (Ozzie Gaedel 11 errors).