Home Run Derby

 Round 1:

Robb Stark 14, Yoon-tae Kim 13

The King of the North has his home town fans behind him as LA hosts the all star game as he tops the former MVP.

Jason Robinson 13, Devan Arceneaux 14

Chris Murray 10, Richie Jackson 11

Michael Hopkins 14, Chin Phong 12

Round 2:

Stark 17, Arceneaux 14

Jackson 9, Hopkins 10

FINALS:

Stark 14, Hopkins 14 TIE???  

Shocking trades explained

 On Monday July 3rd, the LA Shockers did something expected: they bolstered their starting rotation by acquiring a solid pitcher. Joel Fletcher, 27, a strike thrower with a career ERA of 3.94 over parts of the last 5 seasons. He's cost effective as well, making 1.5 million this year and eligible for arbitration over the next two seasons. Fletcher has split time this season between St Louis and AAA Memphis because the Robins have a very deep starting staff. It makes sense for both teams to work a deal for Fletcher.

The initially announced return, however, did not make sense. The Shockers would be trading Rob Stark, who after hitting 4 homers in the last two days leads the league with 31 bombs. The King of the North is an MVP candidate on the league's best team. It is hard to find a precedent for a team having that much success and trading away their best player in the middle of the season.

It didn't make sense to owner Shockwave either. While in general, GM Jeffrey Lewis has the authority to make trades, the approval of ownership is generally a formality and Shockwave quickly approves the deal. In this case, that did not happen. Shockwave suspected something was wrong and quickly flew to Lewis's Toluca Lake home. He found the jawa naked, covered in his own feces, and screaming about how the coronavirus vaccine causes people to grow green and red tentacles which will force them to vote for Trump in any election, whether he is running or not.

Lewis was immediately checked into the Betty Ford Clinic, although Shockwave maintains that the team only wishes Lewis a complete recovery and his job will be waiting for him when he is better. Scouting director Harvey Aaron will run the team in the meantime.

The Shockers went back to St. Louis to renegotiate the deal, and were able to make it work with Bill Berry heading to the Robins. Berry, a 26 year old first baseman, has been playing part time with the Shockers and has 9 homers in 112 AB, good for a .580 slugging percentage. He is only making the league minimum, so won't push the Robin payroll too far north.

Some sabermetricians think that the Shockers should have let the deal stand, plug Berry into the starting lineup, and save a lot of money. But Shockwave disagrees. In his mind, you don't trade your best player mid-season when you are putting up the best record in the game. To set Stark at ease, Shockwave gave him a no-trade assurance for the reminder of his contract.