Scorpion acquire reigning GBL Player of Year
Peter Young is running out of former players to acquire.
The new Scorpions vice president of baseball operations is set to acquire reigning Golden Baseball League Player of the Year Nelson Castro from the Calgary Vipers - Young's last team - for future considerations.
The trade is scheduled to be announced Monday.
"I'm running out of guys I can go after," Young said. "I'm sort of stuck now. I'm running out of guys."
Castro led the Vipers to the GBL title and led the league in batting, slugging, triples and stolen bases. He hit .410 with 10 triples and stole 33 bases. His 81 RBI and 80 runs were second in the league, and he blasted 11 home runs.
Young said he is considered one of the top defensive shortstops in the league and was key to the Vipers winning the 2009 GBL Championship. Castro was the Vipers Player of the Year in 2008 and a GBL All-Star each of the last three season. Young also said he seems to get better with age, raising his average from .323 in 2007 to .336 in 2008 and to .410 in 2009.
"He and I go back to the beginning as well," Young said. "Obviously if you have a chance to get the best player in the league, you'd be pretty foolish not to explore all possibilities especially when you can get a guy of that talent when everybody else in the league would love to have him. We pulled the trigger before anybody else could."
He becomes the third former Vipers player to be acquired by Young. The Scorpions will be managed by 2007 Baseball America Player of the Year Darryl Brinkley and this past week signed multi-year all-star Carlos Duncan.
“Nellie is one of the elite players in all of Independent Baseball,” Young said. “He’s also one of the classiest players I’ve encountered in all of baseball and gives us a top rate middle infield along with Peter Ramos. Seeing him and Carlos reunited will be good for baseball in Yuma.”
The Scorpions will open training camp on May 9 and will hold an open tryout and free agent camp on May 8 at Desert Sun Stadium.
