[Westheim]

At least for us it was quiet over Christmas. I had one offer out there (since December 7) for a former Raccoon I tried to get back into the fold, but hadn’t heard from him since then. It was also rather quiet in the league.

December 24 – 33-yr old INF Tom Nicks (.273, 73 HR, 679 RBI), who was traded from the Knights to the Stars prior to the 1994 season, signs with the Knights again, for 3-yr, $2.28M. Observers are questioning his deteriorating defense, though.
December 28 – OF Diego Rodriguez (.285, 84 HR, 699 RBI) signs a 4-yr, $3.66M contract with the Dallas Stars. The 33-yr old spent the last three years with the Capitals.

As the calendar hit January 1995, I became active again, exploring trade options for Jorge Salazar. I didn’t get very far. Salazar’s huge contract made trading difficult at a point, where there were quite a few high-prized free agents left on the market. Almost all teams had their budget tied up at this point, except a few, of which the Knights and Condors were the only ones not rebuilding and likely to take on a mid-30s shortstop who was due a bucket full of money.

But the package I thought of in a trade with the Knights (SP Pat Cherry and 1B Carlos Guzman) was not accepted by the Knights, who demanded Antonio Donis in the deal. Do I look like I am THAT ******ed? Guzman would have been flipped on in that deal: even the Knights were unable to pay Salazar’s salary in full, and I had to take on another $200k in salary from their roster, which brought us to Guzman. You surely would get a neat right-handed reliever for him. But it was not meant to be.

The Condors were flushing their cash down the toilet because they didn’t know where to put it, but they had zero players on their roster that were attractive to me. Zero. Don’t get me wrong: the Condors have lots of good players. But none of them fit on the Coons.

Should we go with a shortstop with stellar defense in place of Salazar and bats .220? Those are cheap, most of the time. In that case, we had an in-house solution: 28-year old Matt Duncan, who refused to go anywhere, despite him being designated for assignment twice in the last few years. Duncan plays all four infield spots very well. Don’t expect him to hit more than .230 though. (His career average is .236 in fact in 373 AB in seven different seasons with three different teams)

So trading Salazar for a starter was one option. What about O’Morrissey? His contract was not half of Salazar’s. Offering O-Mo to the Knights for Pat Cherry did not evoke excitement form the Knights, either. They still demanded either Donis, or Miguel Lopez, or Gabby De La Rosa.

Yeah, well. Keep that lemon of yours.

That confined us to waiting for a few days until more big free agents would go off the market. Talking about Will Jackson, Edgardo Garza, Raimundo Beato, Forest Hartley, Jim Harrington, and Tadanobu Sakaguchi and so on here.

The bad news here were, that things were going *really* slow on the free agent market. The month breezed past with many of them remaining still unsigned, including “Pooky”. It is almost time that *we* make him an offer to return home. Of course for less salary than he waived. No, I don’t even know where to grab that money from.

Man, that budget cut is hurting us …

January 7 – The Raccoons re-sign MR Grant West (38-33, 2.12 ERA, 520 SV) to a 1-yr, $300k. The soon-to-be-38-year old West has never pitched anywhere but with his hometown team.
January 12 – The Condors grab former Buffalo RF/1B/LF Edgardo Garza (.305, 170 HR, 923 RBI). The 34-year old is going to make $2.3M over two years.
January 15 – Ex-Thunder SP Manuel Garza (106-96, 3.61 ERA) signs a 2-yr, $2.24M contract with the Capitals.
January 16 – Raccoons and Crusaders swap minor league pitchers: 29-yr old SP Carlos De Los Angeles (0-1, 4.05 ERA in 4 G / 1 GS) is sent to the Crusaders for 20-yr old 12th round pick SP Ramon Morales, who pitched a no-hitter at the A level in 1993, but regressed last year.
January 19 – The Canadiens add LF/CF Forest Hartley (.288, 107 HR, 581 RBI) for 5-yr, $4.5M. The 31-yr old Hartley was with the Wolves before, but managed only 357 AB in 1994 due to injuries.
January 21 – The Crusaders send 2B/SS Pete Thompson (.263, 6 HR, 170 RBI) and a prospect to San Francisco for SP Jose Ramos (27-22, 4.38 ERA) and a minor league pitcher.
February 2 – Ex-CIN RF/LF Moromao Hino (.249, 62 HR, 401 RBI) at age 29 signs a 7-yr, $5.73M contract with the Dallas Stars, who keep loading up this winter.

So, Granny West misgambled with me. I had offered as much as $360k in October. He didn’t take it, insisting on a multi-year deal, and then went to test the market. Whoops, the market didn’t want him! So, this story continues. He is a good chunk removed from being a lights out closer, but he can still get people out. (But beware that 3-run homer…)

Well, Granny. You have 838 career games. You’d hit a thousand if I put you into every single game this year.

Meanwhile, Salazar is really hard to move. It is almost like every other team is also smelling that a decline must come around the corner to attack him any minute now, and nobody wants to be stuck with that salary. It is February 2, start of the preseason, and I have yet to get a single meaningful deal done this offseason.