[m0ng00se]

1961 PRESEASON

RETIRED:
-Dusty Keiper
-Walter Pond
-Elton Faulkner
-Sam Cheney
-David Castaneda
-Ben Lutske

EXPANSION DRAFT LOSSES:
-SS Eddie Nickerson
-MR Bill Skow
-MR Mike Brazil
-3B Bernie Spence
-SP Lewis Betz
-2B Matt Perly
-MR Magnus George


-Watching Matt Perly retire on another teams bench is going to suck quite a lot. I wish I had been able to have the time to be more creative with my protected list to ensure he would retire as a Tiger. He's just one of those guys who doesn't know when to hang'em up.
-Dave Castaneda would have been another guy I wouldn't have wanted to see retire elsewhere, but luckily he chose to call it a career rather than allow him self to be drafted in expansion.
-I was hoping Eddie Nickerson would some how escape the attention of the expansion teams, but deep down I knew he was gone. But with Moe Todd showing signs of also being a good SS prospect, we knew we could afford to let one of them go.
-Magnus George has been our setup guy for a few years now. But he turns 38 this year and didn't look like he had much left in the tank towards the end of the season. So, future-wise, he will not be a big loss. But our BP was already weak and has been made weaker with these expansion draft losses. I'm not yet sure who I'm going to be able to count on to help Patterson close out games.

SPRING TRAINING
-We got a couple of really nice scouting reports on SS/3B Moe Todd (now a 6/6/4/7/7 talent) and SP Alex Childress (was a 4/5/5 talent, now a 6/7/6).
-SS Edgar Dillon's bat is nearly major league ready and would be a big defensive improvement at short over Camacho and Turnbull. He'll move up to AAA for sure, but I'll let Turnbull keep his starting SS spot for a while longer and hope that Bub rebounds some of that nasty talent hit he took late last year.
-2B Luke Logan's OBP should improve this year as his eye has never been sharper.