BREAKING NEWS: Baltimore Lords Agree to Acquire 2B Winston Ripkin

By KYLE KEOUGH
Double Day AP

The Baltimore Lords (12-13) have reached an agreement to acquire 28-year-old second baseman Winston Ripkin from the Aneheim Robins as part of a four-player deal.

For Ripkin, the Lords will part with RP Orlando Pineda (3.60 ERA in Low A), SP/RP Benji Browning (1-0, 1.80 ERA in High A), and SS Don Thomas (.429, 5 RBIs in Low A), three of the Lords' top amateur acquisitions over the last two seasons.

Ripkin has starred in Vancouver and Boise before the franchise was once again purchased and moved, this time to Anaheim. As the Robins' star infielder, Ripkin is a two AL Silver Slugger at second and an all-star selection for the first time last season.

Ripkin's career averages mark him as one of DoubleDay's premier infielders: a lifetime .305 hitter who compliments power (96 career home runs) with speed (62 stolen bases). As a season-one Most Valuable Player finalist, Ripkin has become a five-tool threat just now entering the prime of his career.

Ripkin has started season three in scintillating fashion, with 24 RBIs in 25 games to rank among the better run producers in DD thus far. After earning a four-year, $33.2-million contract, Baltimore has agreed to pay off the entirety of the remaining two years of that contract, plus a prorated portion of this year's salary.

Ripkin joins a middling Baltimore roster one year removed from a breakthrough 88-win season. The Lords, now 12-13 on the season, have added the middle-of-the-lineup hitter that has been conspicuously absent from their roster thus far. The Lords are 15th in the ML in runs scored, and Ripkin adds another base-stealing threat to a lineup that is already third in DD in bases stolen (with 38).

Ripkin will now be teamed with 25-year-old Lords 1B Homer Vance. Vance is batting .330 with 24 HRs on the season and will now have the luxery of having Ripkin's bat alongside him in the lineup.