[Westheim]

Here comes December, with some detailed insights into select players.

December 3 – The Raccoons trade LF/RF Yoshinobu Ishizaki, with a career OBP of .446, to Tijuana for MR Jackie Lagarde, 25, and prospect SP/MR Qi-zhen Geng, 18.
December 7 – The Gold Sox add free agent 1B Juan Rivera, formerly with the Pacifics, for $3.12M over four years. The 30-year old Rivera is a .306 hitter with 86 home runs, but missed more than half of last year with hip problems.
December 8 – The Knights deal 2B Pat Graham, 30 and a career .287 hitter with a knack for extra base hits, to Sioux Falls for MR Jean-Francois Ferrand, a 30-yr old right hander who only recently reached the major leagues.
December 8 – The Titans add pitching in form of veteran Gary Hill (103-104, 3.80 ERA) and a prospect, sending OF/3B Bob Arnold, a 27-yr old doubles hitter, to Topeka.
December 8 – In turn the Buffaloes acquire Raul Chavez from the Wolves, intending to use him and his 2.18 career ERA as their new closer, in exchange for OF Phil Burnett, hitting .256 for his career.
December 8 – Doubles danger 1B Alberto Villanueva is acquired by the Indians along with a prospect, as they send MR Juan Cardenas (3.72 ERA in 130 G) over to San Francisco.
December 10 – The Indians sign free agent OF Alex White, 34, to a 2-yr, $1.32M contract. He has 1,828 career hits, but had an injury-marred season in ’88. White is of course infamous in Portland, for picking the year he spent with the Coons (1983) as his anti-year.
December 10 – The Rebels acquire keystone catcher Donnie Nichols and pitching prospect Carl Caldwell from Denver for SP Lazaro Alba (17-17, 4.42), who himself has only just outgrown prospect status.
December 11 – The Portland Raccoons and CL Grant West announce a 5-yr, $2.625M contract extension. West has a career 1.81 ERA with 288 SV.
December 21 – The Cyclones add SP Ricardo Torres (90-70, 3.56 ERA), age 29, and a workhorse for the pen in MR Seung-ook Yi, 33, who has a 2.51 ERA and 868 K in 848 IP. Both left the Miners as free agents, and will make $2.92M over four years and $1.056M over three years, respectively.
December 22 – The Blue Sox acquire 3B Tony Oliva, a modest .245 hitter, from the Capitals for MR Jose Amador (4.02 ERA).
December 25 – The Raccoons flip 1B/3B Joe Jackson, 24, for the Falcons’ INF/OF Justin Reader, 25.
December 25 – The Cyclones still have money left and add 33-yr old INF Claudio Rojas and his 2,308 career hits (leads all other players by almost 200) with a $1.71M over three years contract.
December 25 – Ex-DEN OF Shoichi Fujino (.269 with decent power) signs with the Knights for 4-yr, $2.26M.
December 28 – Closer Domingo Rivera, 28, finds a new home in Washington. He was with the Buffaloes the last two years, has a 1.96 ERA and 241 SV, and will make $1.2M over two years.
December 28 – The Miners sign ex-OCT SP Wilson Cordova (64-64, 3.78 ERA) to a 6-yr, $3.72M deal.
December 31 – The Raccoons send INF Juan Ramirez to the Miners for two prospects.
January 1 – The Knights sign OF Seitaro Ogawa, who played a great losing-end World Series with the Condors last year, to a $900k deal over two years. He is a .248 hitter with 79 career homers.

I managed to crash fan interest by dealing Itchy. Well, things go that way. All the time. We’re down to 78, which is a 15-point reduction or so since the end of last season. Signing the extension with Grant West got it back to 81. Grant will remain a Coon through his age 37 season. $525k/y is a bit less than what some closers take in, but he wanted to stay bad enough to take it – not that we rasied our voices, this was our first offer to him – and BNN rates him 13th among closers.

Well, I disagree with that ranking. He is not listed on the career ERA leaderboard, since he misses the minimum innings requirement (526 IP required, 478.2 IP actual), but IF he met it with his current career ERA … he would rank second!

After unexpectedly dealing Kelly Weber, we now have an opening in the outfield. Any addition has to play center, where now only Johnston is lined up. Bill Stevens could fill the hole out of AAA. At 28, he can show again, what he has. It has never been enough before. We also have Neil Reece and Randy Powers available as centerfielders at AAA, but I want to save those for later.

Mark Dawson likes it in Portland – so much that he continues to exercise his 10/5 rights. I may have been able to acquire Nashville’s Antonio Rodriguez, a high-OBP, speedy, great defense centerfielder at age 24 for him, but … didn’t work. Dawson will be in his last contract year in 1989. He is currently ranked a type A free agent (but Armando Sanchez was too, so expect Dawson to hit .211 with four homers and a broken leg this year).

Knowing that Mark Dawson will be here another year (which *really* could be worse, I mean, he *is* the all-time home run leader and routinely drives in a hundred!), we can restructure our plans for the infield. Dawson will play at third base often, and some games in right. Depending on how he hits (.210 or .260), he will play more or less games. Higgins has room in the middle infield. O’Morrissey will get a lot of time trying to learn second base, and he will learn it right where the fire burns. We have that guy with the generic Hispanic name I won’t remember until July [looks it up] Gonzalez to play short a lot. That leaves a space for someone who has to play both middle infield positions at least decently. Carlos Miranda fits that description and he’s already here. A left-hander would be neat, but those are not easy to come by. Juan Ramirez would do, but he’s 32 and I want more younger players.

I saw no use for Joe Jackson, once hyped as the next thing, whose ratings have gone from a potential 20/13/16 to about half of that. He plays only the corners and does not fit the job description for our sixth man. He was accordingly traded away for Justin Reader, an ideal backup player batting .266 with no power, but he plays every position well enough to make him valuable.

I had a trade lined up sending Juan Ramirez to the Miners for SS/3B Lorenzo Ocasio, who is 23 and a better hitter than Reader, but Ocasio doesn’t play second base very well. Then again, I consider Ocasio inferior to O’Morrissey, so if he go through the pain to install a youngster at second that has hardly ever played there, then we go with what we have already, and that is O’Morrissey. The Miners *had* an interest in him, so I looked for ways to get a few minor league players with potential from them. I found a pair at the AA level, 1B Orlando Alvarado and INF Elmer Hawley. We will probably never hear from them again.

And Dawson – his career OPS+ is 105, which goes to show what a worthless stat it is. He has a .244/.303/.424 stat line. His .797 OPS last season is actually a career best! However, he has 1,658 career hits, 253 HR, and 1,081 RBI. He will reach 2,000 hits (but not as a Coon) if he plays till age 37. This is a premium offensive player, who (and this stat randomly was churned out by BNN just this month) is second all-time in total bases (2,876; seven behind Hector Atilano), and his OPS+ basically says “yeah, well, decent” … add to that Gold Glove defense. Add on top of that gold standard health. I mean, he’s had a few sprains and strains over the last decade, but was on the DL like … twice? (Of course, Osanai has played in every game (and *started* every game!) since we got him from Vancouver) If anything, his ability to hit into double plays drives me mad. He has 278 GIDP in his career. If you combine Daniel Hall’s and Tetsu Osanai’s numbers, you get over 8,600 AB’s to Dawson’s 6,782. Hall and Osanai combine for only 189 double plays hit into!

Yeah, Tetsu starts every game, he never needs any rest, he just keeps going and going and going and going and – oh dear lord, he’s one of those Japanese killer robots!! (cries out in panic and runs)

By the time the season starts, we should be down to seven players aged 30 or older, including Logan Evans, who will come back in early-to-mid April, it seems: Evans, Campbell, West, Goodman, Dawson, Hall, and Osanai.

What else? Sam Dadswell came down with food poisoning over Christmas.

Fín.