Ya my Expos Dynasty was accidently deleted by my brother so i decided to start a new one.
*This Dynasty takes place in an Alternate universe where the proposed Alexis Rios for Tim Lincecum deal was accepted by the Giants.*
December 7th, 2007
My cell-phone was ringing beside my ear, I rolled over in bed and picked it up. “Alex, this is J.P, Sabean just accepted the Rios for Lincecum deal. I’d like you to come with me to St. Louis tomorrow, we’re going to meeting with David Eckstein and then have dinner with John Mozeliak to discuss the Rolen for Glaus swap I was talking to you about.” “Alright, meet you at the airport tomorrow.” I looked at the clock beside my bed, 1:10 AM, hopefully I could get 5 hours of sleep before tomorrow, it was going to be a big day.
My name is Alex Watson and I was hired by the Blue Jays as Special Assistant to the General manager at the end of the ‘07 season. I had spent the last month and a half of the 2007 season in San Francisco watching everyone of Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain’s starts in person. J.P had met with Giants GM Brian Sabean in Nashville at the start of the winter meetings, he had proposed a Rios for Cain/ swap which Sabean was reluctant to do. Instead they started discussing a Rios for Lincecum deal. Personally I favoured Cain, he had a more durable build at 6’3, 231 lb compared to Lincecum who was 5’11, 160 lb soaking wet. Cain also had a much more compact delivery whereas I felt Lincecum’s delivery would eventually lead to an Elbow or shoulder injury. However, I had to admit, not many pitchers could touch “Tiny Tim” in terms of “stuff”.
J.P eventually worked out a deal that sent Rios and 2005 first round pick/bust Ricky Romero to San Fran for Lincecum. Now with our rotation set we had the line-up to worry about. Rios was the only reliable offensive performer last year and now we had next to nothing. Vernon Wells had just come of his worst season ever where he hit .245 with only 16 home runs. Frank Thomas hadn’t played in 140 years in two straight seasons since 02-03 and Matt Stairs was due for a down year. It was going to be a struggle to score runs this year.
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“Thanks for coming with me Alex,” said J.P as I met him at Toronto’s Lester B. Pearson airport. “Remind me again why are we pursuing Eckstein? Johnny Mac was excellent their last year and if we really need to we can play Scutaro or Pedro Lopez there when he needs a day off.” “MacDonald was awful with the bat last year and now with Rios gone we really need to get more offensive production from short.” “Whatever you say J.P, I just think we should stick with Mac, especially with all the groundball pitchers we have.” These comments from me made for a somewhat awkward flight to St. Louis, although I slept most of the way anyways.
After an hour of talking with Eckstein and his agent we had hammered out a deal that would give him 4.5 million for the 2008 season. I was surprised how willing he was to sign with us after J.P had told him point blank that he would have to beat put John MacDonald for the starters job. Next up was a trip to the Outback steakhouse to meet with Cardinals GM John Mozeliak. Over the course of steaks and beers we discussed trading Troy Glaus to the Cards for Scott Rolen. The trade would benefit both sides as it would get Glaus off the field turf in Toronto and get Rolen away for Tony La Russa. By the end of dinner we had agreed on the deal and sent it to the NLB head office for approval.
Today had been a productive day but we still had a long ways to go if we were going to beat out the Yankees and the Sox.
*Up next:Rules and Spring Training*
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Originally Posted by cujo376
