[Westheim]

Welcome to the next round of “Will we turn this ship around?” …

The offseason began with the decision whether or not to execute Jorge Romero’s option. Doing so would pay him $392k next year. He had a bad 1981 season, half injured, half mediocre. But he has been better in the past, and although his labrum history is scaring, I will keep him.

Apart from that we had three other free agents / arbitration cases. Stephano Bocci and Ben Simon (who had played in all 810 Raccoons games) refused my offers and were to become free agents. I offered arbitration to them. Both were type B free agents (Simon had been ranked type A early in the season).

Tony Lopez was a super-2 arbitration case, although I can hardly believe it. His estimate was $99k and I was willing to submit that. So, we’re already done here.

Shopping list:
• Find a starter to replace 3-21 Gary Simmons
• Find a new catcher hitting .250 or more
• Find a new backup catcher (since Ed Peterson will be sent packing)
• Find improvement for CF and 3B/SS
• Find a quality lefty reliever (at bargain of course)
I’m so confident I won’t even be able to strike off two of those…

By the way, the Raccoons won two Gold Gloves this year. Ben Simon won his third, and Cameron Green won his first. Green made 13 errors this year! Are there no good third basemen in the league?

My goal is to completely revamp the roster, as far as possible and necessary. I have a very short list of people I will not trade under any circumstances: Daniel Hall, Matt Workman, Chris Powell, Logan Evans, Jorge Romero, Ralph Nixon, Wally Gaston, Richard Cunningham, and Grant West. That’s about it (excluding the odd minor leaguer).

October 29 – Vancouver acquires SP Kinji Kan from Las Vegas for two prospects. Kan was 12-14 with a 4.76 ERA in ’81, his career numbers are hardly better.
November 5 – More trade between Canadiens and Aces, as Vancouver gets CF Michael Martin, a .257 hitter with the Miners until mid-season and only three months on the Aces roster, in exchange for struggling SP Hubert Gaines and a prospect.
November 5 – Infielder Dan Payne, a career .283 hitter, is traded from the Warriors to the Loggers in exchange for two minor leaguers.
November 7 – More Aces dealt: Las Vegas sends outfielder Greg Palmer, a career .289 hitter, to Sacramento in exchange for prospect SS Antonio Ramirez, highly touted by some, considered a bust by many.
November 7 – David Burke and Miguel Sanchez are the Cy Young winners. Both receive it for the first time. Burke won the FL triple crown, Sanchez led the CL in wins and IP, and won game 7 of the World Series.
November 8 – SAC OF Larry Marshall (.336, 16 HR, 84 RBI) and CHA 1B Irwin Webster (.347, 10 HR, 80 RBI) are crowned MVP’s. Both win it for the first time.

November 15 saw the arbitration hearings. Tony Lopez got a $99k contract (he demanded $165k). Simon and Bocci refused arbitration and filed for free agency. Five minor leaguers also file for free agency, including Alberto Colon and R.J. Sanderson, a backup infielder and backup catcher, respectively, of years past and already almost forgotten.

That left me with some more stuff to unload. Like Hoyt Cook, or Edward Peterson, or Ben Cox, or Troy Scott.

I shopped Cook around after the free agents filed and Milwaukee offered me C/1B Mike Gamble. It would have been an instant pick if not for Gamble’s hefty $474k salary for ’82. That was too much. Well, there were other possibilities…

November 18 – The Raccoons send 1B Hoyt Cook to Dallas in exchange for pitching prospect Todd Raines.
November 19 – The Raccoons and Warriors complete a 4-player deal. Portland sends outfielder Ken Clark, who led the Continental League in steals in ’81 and is a career .239 hitter, and AA level SP David Castillo to Sioux Falls, receiving C Spencer Dicks and utility player Steve Walker in the deal. Dicks is a defensive wizard with a .200 to .220 bat, while Walker can play many positions and is a contact hitter.
November 28 – The Scorpions catch one of the biggest fish in the free agent pond, inking infielder Hector Atilano, formerly with the Crusaders, to a 5-year, $4.25M contract. The 30-yr old Atilano is .322 with 66 HR and 382 RBI lifetime.
December 1 – SP Jack Pennington signs for six years for $4.02M with the Pittsburgh Miners. Pennington has a lifetime record of 91-47 with a 3.20 ERA, and also spent half a season with the Raccoons.
December 1 – Rule 5 draft: six players are picked in the draft, four alone by the Sioux Falls Warriors, themselves seriously depleted through free agencies, but the Raccoons are unaffected.
December 3 – Slugger Juan Medine signs for 2 years and $1.74M with the Crusaders.
December 8 – Career .285 hitting outfielder Xavier Landry is traded from Pittsburgh to Boston for reliever Jesus Perez (18-17, 4.09 ERA, 15 SV).
December 9 – The Cyclones shell out just over $5M over seven years for 30-yr old infielder Julio Martinez, a .324 hitter, who had been with the Gold Sox since ’78.
December 10 – The Portland Raccoons sign outfielder Eduardo Guerrero, 30, to a 1-yr, $95,000 contract. Guerrero is a career .275 hitter with the Atlanta Knights, who spent 1981 as a free agent.
December 11 – Starter Xavier Mayes is traded from Charlotte to Atlanta for prospects. Mayes is in the majors since mid-1980, posting a 17-9 record with a 3.06 ERA.
December 12 – Free agent catcher Stephano Bocci signs with the Sacramento Scorpions, which gives the Raccoons a supplemental pick in the 1982 draft.
December 12 – Salem sends veteran outfielder Matt Mason to Richmond for reliever Vern Hesketh, whilst a pair of prospects is also exchanged.
December 22 – International free agent SP Mario Garcia, 32, signs with the Portland Raccoons for $550k over two years.
December 25 – The Cyclones and 1B Andre Long, 36, agree on a 2-yr, $1.22M contract for the contact hitter.
December 27 – Slugger Dan Younger signs for six years and $4.29M with the Buffaloes. Younger played with the Warriors for most of his career.
December 28 – The Aces trade former Raccoon Roman Ocasio to Dallas for a minor leaguer.
December 29 – Longtime Loggers starter Greg O’Brien (58-67, 3.81 ERA), 31, signs a 3-yr, $1.59M contract with the Rebels.
December 31 – The Cyclones unload aging veteran Christian Hampton, 38, who still knows how to hit .280+, to the Miners for 25-yr old starting pitcher Tom Harden (15-14, 4.24 ERA).
January 27 – Juan “Mauler” Correa finds a new home in Charlotte for $3.62M over four years. Lifetime he is 121-39 with a 2.20 ERA.
January 28 – Ben Simon moves upstate to the Salem Wolves for a 4-yr, $2.35M deal. He could have gotten that one here as well… Raccoons receive a supplemental round pick. Fan interest has crashed.
February 4 – 86-78 with a 3.87 ERA lifetime, Jose Salgado was still able to squeeze out a 3-yr, $1.21M contract from the pitching desperate Warriors.
February 10 – Star 1B Juan Fuentes, 36, signs with the Crusaders, receiving $2.79M over three years. Fuentes is a lifetime .303 hitter and hit .315 with the Condors last year.
February 14 – Another Condor has landed safely: 32-yr old SP Hunter Frazier has signed with the Thunder, earning $3.28M over four years. Frazier has a career 65-49 record.

Cook had batted .300 in 1980, pushing Wyatt Johnston aside after years of bench warming. Then he imploded this year – completely. He batted .193. With Matt Workman up and Wyatt Johnston still batting .250 at age 40, first base is covered. He can’t play nowhere else, so he is out. Raines is a good young guy with a solid assortment of pitches, who sould make the majors by 1984.

The second deal with the Warriors was initiated by them. They originally offered Dicks and a minor league catcher with no future for Clark. I didn’t want their scrub growing in my yard, so I made a move for Walker, who plays six positions (all but C and LF, and CF only badly) and is hitting .270+ in his short career (he’s 22!). They were willing to part with him, but not for Clark alone. They included Castillo in a list of only three players (along with Carlos Gonzalez as another young pitcher) for reasons unbeknownst to me. He was stuck at the AA level and actually had gotten worse since 1979. I threw him out in a heartbeat. I will miss Clark’s speed and the CF situation has worsened with this trade, since Ben Cox is not a good option, but it plucks the catcher’s spot fairly well and offers Walker as a #2 hitter in place of .210 hitter Edgardo Gonzalez. Worst case, both play backup, but they both came with minimum contracts through 1983 (Walker through ’84).

For those believing in that kind of stuff: the Cook trade was a +1.0 WAR gain, the Clark trade a +1.3 WAR gain. If you look at the WAR gains the Raccoons made the last few winters, and where it got them in the standings, you will quickly realize why I don’t give a rat’s bottom about it anymore.

After those two trades the winter quickly became frustrating for the Raccoons. No trades for competent outfielders came to fruition. The Garcia signing was born out of desperation since I had lost hope in Gary Simmons, but couldn’t get anybody worthwhile in a trade for him either. Simmons had one last option year, which would be put to use in all likeliness.

I talked to about ten teams about at least a dozen good CF/RF players, but they always ask for Logan Evans or Daniel Hall, which doesn’t help me a bit. Nobody wants any of my other players, nobody wants Troy Scott or Gary Simmons or Stanton Coleman or even Pedro Sánz. It’s mid-February, the roster has not been improved at all. This spiral of agony will never end.

And by the way, the schedule rotation remains broken and I really don’t feel like going through that file again. Why can’t it just stop and instead start working!?

This game hates me and I hate this game.