Free Ryan Benesch!

January 6, 2009
Author: tfitch

The NLL’s 2007 Rookie of the Year, and briefly Stealth player, Ryan Benesch needs a home. The Portland Lumberjax need some scoring. See the connection here? The question is, how do we get from Ryan Benesch being on the bench in Toronto to being on the floor in Portland? Thanks to a suggestion from a loyal reader in Portland my answer involves Pete Jacobs and picks the Portland Lumberjax may or may not have (since I haven’t kept track of what picks they still have).

In my opinion, a trade of Benesch for Jacobs and a 2nd rounder would be equal value. But equal value for players doesn’t factor in a team’s desperation to make a trade.

Pete Jacobs has a ton of upside. Since he is so young (19 years old) in a few years he might be producing like Benesch is capable of doing right now. Benesch is also young (turns 24 years old later this month) it’s not like Rochester trading a 20 year old Andrew Potter and two 1st round picks for an old Gary Gait (entered college in the 80’s) to get some production right now, but for only one or two years. If Colorado drafts properly they could be benefiting from this trade for 15 years, think about that. Portland would get more production right now than Jacobs can create by himself and down the road Benesch and Jacobs possibly produce roughly the same amount if I had to guess. This makes it a long term solution for both teams.

But here’s the problem for the Jax, Toronto beat New York with Benesch on the bench this weekend. So Toronto doesn’t need to give him up cheap just to get rid of him. On the other hand Portland appears to need offensive help, so while Jacobs and a 2nd rounder seems fair, Toronto could probably ask for a lot more and just as easily walk away. Looking at the Gary Gait deal, Toronto and Colorado are in the same position. Gary Gait was already retired, Colorado wasn’t even going to use him but they got three players in exchange! Gary Gait is great, but is he that great? Not especially, but Rochester needed a lefty and paid dearly for him. How much will Portland have to pay to find a scorer if they haven’t worked out there offensive issues in a couple weeks?