Cream City Gearing Up for 2008 Season

Cream City and Montgomery County

Cream City trades Josh Willingham, Willy Taveras, John Patterson, Jorge De la Rosa, Kyle Davies and its 2009 1st to Montgomery County for A.J. Burnett, Francisco Cordero, Pat Burrell, and Cory Sullivan ... all current salaries for 2007 to be paid by former teams.

Cream City adds an ace caliber pitcher in A.J. Burnett, with injury issues and a relatively high salary (for a pitcher with injury issues) and a top closer in Cordero at a decent price to its 2008 bullpen. The Pirate pitching staff looks tough for next year (see next trade). Burrell and Sullivan cost the Pirates nothing and are one-year PA fillers only. Meanwhile, Montgomery County gains a full-time left fielder in Willingham, who also has shown good patience at the plate, a speedy centerfielder in Taveras who also provides excellent defensive range and arm, and some hopes ... hopes that Patterson will bounce back from surgery and that De la Rosa and Davies will figure out how to pitch. But they're cheap, so it's a good roll of the dice and they will provide IPs next year.

Cream City and Belfast

Cream City trades Jose Capellan, Neal Cotts and Cream City's 2009 2nd to Belfast for Billy Wagner.

Cream City adds a powerful left-handed component to its 2008 bullpen. Wagner fills out a strong bullpen that consists of Francisco Cordero, Jose Valverde, Jeremy Accardo, Justin Speier and Kyle Farnsworth. Belfast gains some young potential. Will Capellan ever stick around long enough to show what he has, will the transition of Cotts to starter work and will the 2nd round pick yield anything? Who knows, that's baseball. But, Wagner was going to be gone after next year and at least Belfast has something to hopefully bank on.