River City Cuban Missiles (formerly River City Mashers, likely soon to be River City Somefucking Thing Else) owner Mike Lobman loveeeeees to brag about his two championships, conveniently leaving out it took him like twenty seasons to get them both (number of seasons it took me:  2).  He also loooooves to discuss “all time wins” with Mikey T, as if regular season wins fucking matter (particularly sad in Mikey T’s case, he of the [roughly] 3-9 postseason record).  And the last thing he likes to brag about (in fantasy baseball terms, we are leaving aside things like thermostats and walkway stones and back splashes and other lame “adult” shit that he is also perfectly comfortable bragging about) is his willingness to WHEEL AND DEAL!  HE’S A DEALS MAN!  LOVES TO MAKE DEALS!  Well this post is about when those deals go wrong.

I am listing the 5 worst deals BY LOBMAN FOR LOBMAN of the “modern era” here, which in this case I am designating as the past 2 years only.  This is for a very important reason:  the past two years are the first two years when Odom and I were separated, leaving me no longer able to TALK SENSE into that guy when he wants to do wild trades (see Vol. 6 for more Odom potshots).  Couple that with the excellent job Odom did of pretty much singlehandedly hyping up a trade deadline that for years had been relatively quiet, and you can see where the process of quantity go up quality go down might have taken hold. But NO EXCUSES PEOPLE (Lobman), let’s look at the worst trades the Missiles have been a part of in the past two years……. in reverse order…..

NUMBER 5

The Trade:   River City Cuban Missiles trade fantasy baseball darling of the 2015 summer Kyle Schwarber to the WVU Bombers (Rojo) for Tyson Ross.

The Take:  This one gets a bit of a pass because the Missiles ultimately won their second championship in 2015 (took them long enough) and Tyson Ross was pretty nasty in 2015.  HOWEVER, still not a great trade simply because you could have extracted MORE.  2015 Kyle Schwarber was Gary Sanchez before Gary Sanchez showed up and showed how much better he is than Kyle Schwarber.  Back then, Schwarbs was destined to continue to maintain catcher eligibility and continue to rake (now the first part isn’t so certain).  To trade that asset to a non-contending team and only get one piece back is a bit disappointing.  Tyson Ross, lord knows I love him, but he has always fallen a wee bit short of a #1.      

NUMBER 4

The Trade:  That stupid PTBNL deal with Brian, I don’t even want to dignify it with specifics.  Trevor Bauer was involved.

The Take:  This trade sucked less for the players involved than for what it REPRESENTED, which was nothing short of an attempt to undermine the very fabric of the league.  The trade prompted an immediate outcry because it essentially boiled down to Brian trying to trade a piece for the rights to Lobman’s best non-keeper the next offseason, a slippery slope at best.  Both of you should be ashamed of yourselves, but this troll post is focusing on Lobman so SHAME ON YOU LOBMAN.

NUMBER 3

The Trade:  River City Cuban Missiles trade Chris Archer and Carlos Rodon to the Pine Lake whatever they were at the time (Ryan) for Jeff Samardzija.

The Take:   GOOD LORD this one looks bad, kinda makes me want to put it ahead of the next one but the next one was part of that ill-received championship offense teardown so let’s leave that there.  But EW.  We all know how Lobman’s Shark saga went.  He had to sit there and watch him be terrible for most of the goddamned year before finally (mercifully) giving up on him prior to the playoffs, which lead to unethical PTBNL deals and un-saavy deals for Tyson Ross and hey what do yanno I am basically summarizing this whole goddamned list.  Chris Archer went on to be really really good for Odom (cuz Ryan traded him for Strasburg, FAR MORE DEFENSIBLE) in 2015, before being more like just okay last year, but this year he will probably be good again next year.  Carlos Rodon will maybe be really really good any day now or maybe he will just be like Francisco Liriano, but in any case those two good to great pitchers for that one awful Shark year that did not work out one bit.

NUMBER 2

The Trade:  River City Cuban Missiles trade Anthony Rizzo with no sense of loyalty whatsoever/cuz they were bored to the OGTFC (Heroy) for Troy Tulowitzki and Zack Greinke. 

The Take:  It’s all about the trolling TIMING, Michael.  I once traded Anthony Rizzo before he ever took an AB for my team, because I didn’t like his face and didn’t know if he could trulllly hit lefties even though he had already proven at that point that he could.  But you, you took a guy that was a CORNERSTONE of your championship run and you traded him for two sacks of shit.  Apologies, it was one sack of shit pitcher who was coming off a career year NEVER PAY FOR THE CAREER YEAR.  And then an old sack of shit shortstop whom is never healthy and on a steaddddddy decline at a time when shortstops are EVERYWHERE.  Why pay for a shorstop.  Aledmys Diaz’s grow on trees these days.

NUMBER 1

The Trade:  River City Cuban Missiles trade a scorching hot Freddie Freeman to the Springfield Isotopes (T) for a losing his job in front of everyone’s eyes Trevor Rosenthal.  

The Take:  SEE IT IS ALL ABOUT THE TIMING, MICHAEL.  If you are making this sort of trade in spring training because you think Rosenthal is gonna save 50 games and Freeman is going to fucking SOMEHOW struggle to the point where he is only worth a closer then at least you can defend that as you miscalculating some sort of not so distant future.  NOT THE CASE HERE.  This trade was accepted on June 27th, and on June 27th Trevor Rosenthal had a 5.40 ERA.  He was very clearly going to very soon lose his job to the superior talent that is Sueng Hwan Oh (love me some Oh).  Beyond that he is just a closer and Freddie Freeman is Freddie Freeman.  “But but but Sean”, some asshole who thinks questions are allowed during this might say.  “But Sean didn’t Freeman have a really bad start to the year?”  He certainly did, and so again TIMING means maybe in April this trade makes some sort of sense.  Lobman thinks Freeman is messed up or hurt or something, ditch him while you still can.  But let’s look at what Freeman did in June: .426 OBP, .656 SLG, 9 doubles, 4 triples, 5 HRs, 13 runs, 14 RBIs, FUCKING EVEN THREW IN TWO STEALS.  WORST TRADE I HAVE EVER SEEN IN THIS LEAGUE, and I was away in the woods of Delaware so I wasn’t able to point that out because apparently nobody else fucking saw it somehow.  If nobody suggested a veto there our league veto system is dead.  DEAD I SAY.   

So there are the 5 worst trades of the past 2 years for this highly celebrated by their own owner franchise, with no room for alternative interpretations whatsoever.  That is your list.  HOPE YOU ARE PROUD OF YOURSELF LOBMAN.