I find myself with an embarassing array of prospects. I have plans for all of them. Some may swap positions, some may find themselves in a backup role or competing for playing time.

But some can benefit you, the reader of this message. I could flip one or two of them for the right package of prospects. How many of you have even one 5 star prospect? Here’s the count:

Five Star:
1B Juan Mejia
1B Dave Richardson
3B Salvador Romero
RF Reynaldo Dominguez
2B Eduardo Olivo
CF Tom Roberts
CF John Chartrand

4.5 Star:
1B Tucker Baker
2B Octavio Gonzales
1B Jesus Munoz
3B Hector Ventura
LF Arlen Shipley
1B Sancho Bojorquez
1B Walter Maley
SS Carlos Cisneros

4 Star:
1B Simon Fontaine
2B Francis Decesare
3B Tyler Chapman
3B Randy Carman

3.5 Star
SS Chris Williams
2B Carlton Hargrove
LF Alberto Torres
2B Luis Boring
LF Steven Seidl
LF Ken Lalonde

3 Star
3B Josh Hammond
C Ricardo Lucero
SS Alex Evenson
C Ke-huy Tai
CF Alex Vandenberg
C Sixto Arenas

Eric Simon, owner/GM of the Ramapough Mountain franchise, has had to give up his spot in the league. It’s a bummer to lose someone as knowledgeable about baseball as he is. So, with regret but also with thanks, we offer a tip of the cap to Eric for his solid stewardship of a what was a somewhat disheveled franchise when he took it over and now is a much more promising organization.

Fortunately, a new owner has already been identified and secured for the team, David Locke (who some of you may know as the owner of the Ohio franchise in the SDMB OOTP League). We’ll get him set up as the team in the next sim. I’ve hopefully added him to the OEL email list already, and we’ll get his contact information otherwise circulated in due course.

To get David going, we may have to slow down the sim schedule a little bit. Tomorrow’s sim is still on tap, but the schedule beyond that is undecided. We’ll update you as we figure it out.

So, welcome aboard, David.

The Seattle Pilots have shipped under-performing SP Ayurou Hidetada to Stockholm in exchange for MR Juan Moncayo and a fourth round pick. Seattle GM, Mike Bateman, had this to say about the trade. “We had high hopes for Ayurou when we brought him in last year as our big free agent signing, but he came in and started stinking up the place. His pitching was fine, I mean he literally was stinking up the place. I don’t care if it is your lucky underwear, that stuff needs to be cleaned and changed every once in a while. It was causing a real problem in our clubhouse”. The Pilots are expected to release Moncayo and absorb his contract.